Nakkila
Tuesday 07/31/2007 2:06 AM (In Finland: 9:06 AM)
Not much time this morning to write, so this will be very brief with a lot of pictures. Antti has arranged for Juha, an art teacher at Antti's (former) school, to come with us on a sightseeing tour today. Juha and Antti have put together an itinerary for our day, and it's very full so expect a lot of pictures in the next couple of days. Yesterday, though, Antti showed me his town (Nakkila) and then Anja came with us to Rauma, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The first stop was Antti and Anja's church here in Nakkila. When you drive to Nakkila, the first sights you see are the church tower and the water tower, so everytime we come home, Antti says, "Here is my church and my water. We are home." Here is a model of the church (since I couldn't fit the entire tower in the frame of the photo when I tried to take a picture of the real thing):
Here are Antti and our English-speaking guide inside the church:
The statue in memory of World War 2 veterans outside the church:
Every Finnish community has its own symbol or crest, and this is the one for Nakkila:
Here is Antti outside of his former school. He is a retired history teacher, and Anja taught Finnish writing, literature, and drama at a different school before she retired:
Next we went to the old town of Rauma, the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here is a storefront in Rauma:
A close up of shop doors in Rauma:
The restaurant where we took coffee:
The Church of the Holy Cross in Rauma, built in the 15th century:
The statue of St. Francis outside the church:
And a wood carving of a bear in the village of Rauma:
After dinner, we went to visit some of Antti and Anja's friends, the Aaltos. They have the most beautiful rock garden I've ever seen, and their home is filled with Alvar Aalto furnishings (Aalto is a famous Finnish designer and architect, in case you didn't know ... and no relation to these Aaltos, though they clearly love his work). Here are Anja, Seppo, and Antti in the rock garden:
Seppo has done all of the work to create and maintain this garden himself ... he told us that he digs the weeds out with a teaspoon! A photo of the opposite side of the garden:
A photo of me that Antti took in the stone garden:
And the living room (all Aalto furnishings):
OK ... we're off to meet Juha.
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