June 22, Tuesday

We stayed in Turku another day/night to see more and hang out in the city a bit. It is a really cute town with a central river running through it flanked by wide walkways. It was very European feeling (almost like France).  I say that only because Scandinavia has a different flavor than the rest of Europe...they eat a lot of rye bread and cheese (and things that come in jars). 

We visited three churches this day (2 burial chapels, 1 not).  The first was the Ressurection Chapel by Erik Bryggman. It was my favorite of the three. I'm not a huge fan of churches, so I tried to get behind the story of this one and really look at the architecture. There were some very interesting details in how the materials moved right from outside to inside, then you step down (death) and back up to go outside (heaven).  The Scandinavain people have a significant tie to nature, and it really shows through in their work.




The second church was the Church of the Holy Cross by Pitkanen. It was opposite in feeling to the first one.  It was very stark and kind of creepy, but the room was beautiful in itself.

The third church was St. Henry's Ecumenical Chapel. It was built with traditional techniques and made to look like the bottom of a boat. The quality of the inside light is amazing because of the wood.