Vigeland’s “Monolith of Life”

Even though we’re not visiting Europe right now, I believe a regular dose of travel dreaming can be good medicine. And for me, one of the great joys of travel is having in-person encounters with great art and architecture — which I’ve collected in a book called Europe’s Top 100 Masterpieces. Here’s one of my favorites:  

In a park in Oslo — where children play, couples embrace, and old people reflect — you’ll find nearly 200 statues of people engaged in those same primal human activities. It’s a lifetime of work by Norway’s greatest sculptor, Gustav Vigeland. 

In 1921, Gustav Vigeland struck a deal with the city. In return for a great studio and state support, he’d spend his creative life beautifying Oslo with this sculpture garden. From 1924 until his death in 1943 he worked on-site, designing 192 bronze and granite statue groupings — 600 figures in all, each unique. 

Vigeland’s sturdy humans capture universal themes of the cycle of life — birth, childhood, romance, struggle, childrearing, growing old, and death. His statues laugh, cry, jump for joy, and hug each other in sorrow. The bittersweet range of human experience was sculpted by a man who’d seen it all himself: love, failed marriages, children, broken homes, war, death — a man who did not age gracefully.  

For generations, the people of Oslo have made Vigeland’s timeless people a part of their own lives. The park is treated with respect: no police, no fences — and no graffiti. Vigeland created an in situ experience that is at once majestic, hands-on, entertaining, and deeply moving.  

Vigeland was inspired by Rodin’s naked, restless, intertwined statues. Like Rodin, Vigeland explored the yin-yang relationship of men and women. Also like Rodin, Vigeland did not personally carve most of his statues. Rather, he made models that were executed by a workshop of assistants.  

Strolling the park, you’ll cross a 300-foot-long bridge lined with statues, including the famous Angry Boy. He stomps his feet, clenches his fists, and screams — just like two-year-olds have since the beginning of time. (It’s said Vigeland gave a boy chocolate and then took it away to get this reaction.) Next comes a huge fountain, where water — the source of life — cascades around the statues. Vigeland consciously placed his figures amid the park’s landscaping to show how mankind is intimately bound up with nature.  

The most striking thing about these statues is they’re all so darn naked. This isn’t the soft-focus beauty of nubile nymphs, but the stark reality of penises, scrotums, vulvas, breasts, and butts. These people are naked Homo sapiens. 

In the center of the park, high on a hill, is the Monolith, a 46-foot granite pillar surrounded by 36 free-standing statues. Here, Vigeland explores a lifetime of human relationships. A mother bends over to care for her kids. Two lovers nestle nose to nose. A father counsels his son. An old man cradles his emaciated wife. 

Vigeland’s final great work was the Monolith itself. It was carved from a single 180-ton block of granite, and took three sculptors 14 years to carve. The pillar teems with life, a tangle of bodies. More than 120 figures — men, women, old, young — scramble over and around each other as they spiral up toward the top. What are they trying to reach? Success? Happiness? Mere survival? God? Vigeland never said. But whatever it is that drives the human race to aspire to better things, it’s clear that we’re all tied up in it together. 

Daily Dose of Europe: Norway — The Old Country and a New Outlook

Norway is a land of intense natural beauty. It’s also the land of my Norwegian relatives. And every time I come to Norway, I’m fascinated — not only by its famously steep mountains and deep fjords, but by its ongoing experiment with modern, progressive governance.

Even though we’re not visiting Europe right now, I believe a daily dose of travel dreaming can be good medicine. I recently published a collection of my favorite stories from a lifetime of European travels. My new book is called “For the Love of Europe” — and this is just one of its 100 travel tales.

I’ll never forget my first trip to Europe. I was a gangly 14-year-old, dragged to the old country by a conspiracy of grandparents and parents solely to visit strangers who happened to be Norwegian relatives. I didn’t want to go. It just made no sense.

Jet lag wasn’t the problem. It was teen culture shock: No Fanta. No hamburgers. Far beyond the reach of my favorite radio station. Their “Top 40” had nothing to do with my “Top 40.” But after a few days I was wild about Solo (Norway’s orange pop), addicted to the long and skinny pølse wieners, and enjoying new music. Noticing stunning women…with hairy armpits…I began to realize that our world is intriguing and exploring it can be endlessly entertaining.

Visiting the house where my great-grandmother was born, I imagined the courage it must have taken to leave Norway and her entire family for America a century ago.

Sitting with my cousins on their living room floor in 1969 to watch the Apollo moon landing, I began to see the world differently. Hearing them translate Neil Armstrong’s words (“Ett lite skritt for et menneske, ett stort skritt for menneskeheten”), it dawned on me: That first big step was more than just an American celebration. It was a human accomplishment.

In Oslo’s Vigeland Park, I was grossed out by the nude statues by sculptor Gustav Vigeland. But I also experienced an important revelation in that same park that I share every chance I get: As I watched towheaded kids splashing with their parents in a fountain, I realized those parents loved their kids as much as mine loved me. This planet is home to billions of equally precious children of God. Travel was causing me to think bigger. And it was prying open my hometown blinders.

The next time we visited Norway, we looked up our ancestral roots. My grandfather, famous in the 1930s in Leavenworth, Washington, as a rowdy ski jumper, was a Romstad. So although my last name is Steves (after a step-grandfather), my blood is Romstad. That branch of my family comes from a scenic valley called Gudbrandsdalen.

These days, I don’t visit Norway just to read my family name on tombstones. The roots I seek are also cultural. It’s stimulating to learn about different social systems (many of which confound Americans). A friend in Oslo introduced me to the ideas of Norwegian philosopher Erik Dammann, who in the 1970s started a movement called “The Future in Our Hands.” His book by the same name lit a political fire in my belly that burns to this day. Dammann argued that a successful society can rise above materialism and that being content with your material wealth is a virtue. Dammann (and Norway) helped me imagine a society where consumption was not the goal. Norwegians are almost evangelical about their belief in organizing society for the benefit of all. City halls here are as grandly and lovingly decorated as churches.

Norwegians are talented linguists. I speak only English. Of all the places in Europe that I’ve traveled and worked, Norway has been the easiest place to communicate. Not long ago, I was at a cousin’s dinner party with a dozen people in Oslo. Out of deference to me, it was agreed: Everyone would speak English.

The topics were fascinating. One man, an author who had just written a book on Franklin D. Roosevelt, talked with me about the intricacies of American post-WWII politics. Two new parents gently debated the various ways to split their paid maternal and paternal leave (standard in Scandinavia where, for the father, it’s use it or lose it). People seemed very content. It was a house full of chatty Norwegians just loving their salmon, shrimp, and goat cheese.

Sure, Norway is an oasis of warmth and love because I’ve got family there. But I also appreciate the chance to rein in my Ameri-centricity. I admire a smart and creative land where well-being is not preceded by the word “material.”

This story appears in my newest book, “For the Love of Europe” — collecting 100 of my favorite memories from a lifetime of European travel. Please support local businesses in your community by picking up a copy from your favorite bookstore, or you can purchase it at my online Travel Store. You can also find clips related to this story at Rick Steves Classroom Europe; just search for Oslo, Norway.

Daily Dose of Europe: Charming, Challenging Oslo 

Through this pandemic, it’s been fascinating to observe how different countries are handling the crisis. I’ve been impressed by Norway’s approach, which shouldn’t surprise me. Oslo has always had its act together.

With so many of us stuck at home for the foreseeable future, I believe a daily dose of travel dreaming can actually be good medicine. Here’s another one of my favorite travel memories — a reminder of what’s waiting for you in Europe at the other end of this crisis.

I’ve been visiting Oslo since I was a kid, thinking about it as both the home of my forefathers and as a model modern city that I wish could inspire my hometown.

I’m at the harborfront dock, where my old haunt, a Hurtigruten steamer, was once moored. In its prime, the romantic old postal boat linked Oslo with remote communities along the fjords and islands all the way north to the Arctic. Later it became a hotel. My favorite room was its “writer’s cabin,” the only room on that old ship that lacked plumbing and was, therefore, affordable to me. This same dock also marks the spot where my grandparents embarked for the US. They traded the old country for a new one, hoping to swap a dead-end economy for a land of promise.

Standing here today, I survey the modern, people-friendly promenade and think about how life has changed. I can now afford a room with a shower, but the ship is gone. And the relatives who stayed behind in Norway are now living better than many of the ones who left.

I’m surrounded by the white noise of pedestrian bliss. I can hear people talking and laughing, the birds, the breeze — but no cars. A popular “congestion fee” keeps most cars from the center of town. An efficient tunnel diverts nearly all the traffic under the city. The old train station facing the fjord boat dock has become the Nobel Peace Prize Center, thanks to a visionary man who dedicated the wealth he earned inventing dynamite to celebrate peacemakers. And towering high above the harbor action is Oslo’s stately brick City Hall — where Nobel’s prize is awarded. It stands like a cathedral to good civic values, decorated inside and out with statues and murals featuring stoic Norwegians who seem more than willing to pay their steep taxes.

Every time I come to Norway, I’m fascinated by the way they’ve chosen to organize their society. And then, when I get home, I routinely challenge my fellow Americans by telling tales of a land where the desired alternative to big, bad government is not small, good government — but big, good government. While I certainly wouldn’t want to run my business in heavily regulated Europe, I’m challenged and inspired by the Norwegian way of organizing their society.

Discussions with relatives and new friends alike often lead to comparisons of our two very affluent but very different societies. For example, even though North Sea oil is plentiful and a big part of Norway’s economy, the government understands that the world is warming and knows it’s only ethical to have policies to help counteract climate change. To encourage clean electric cars, the government underwrites car charging, parking, tolls, and taxes — making even a luxury Tesla an affordable ride. As Norway steadily reduces its use of gasoline-powered cars, it has become Tesla’s second-biggest market.

Norway is expensive for tourists — and also for Norwegians. The society is designed in a way that encourages people to consume less, to chew more slowly, and to sip rather than gulp. A glass of beer costs $12. A cup of coffee can cost $8 — and free refills are unheard of. I think Norwegians know they could make more money if they embraced the “big gulp” and started supersizing. But the collective decision is not based purely on what would be good for the economy. A big-box economy would just not be Norwegian.

In Scandinavia, tourists are sometimes put off by the many young beer-drinking revelers they see out on the streets, canalside, and littering the parks. But alcohol consumption is no greater here than it is farther south. It’s just that while pubs in Britain and beer halls in Germany are affordable, Scandinavia’s bars come with extremely high alcohol taxes. So people start their evening with a drink at home or a friend’s house before hitting a bar. Or they just B.Y.O.B. — buying cheap beers at a convenience store, then finding a pleasant perch outside for an impromptu gathering. For young Norwegians, “going out” means literally “going outside.” Norwegians cope with the high cost of dining out by using “one-time grills.” On balmy evenings, the city is perfumed with the smell of these disposable foil grills being fired up for dinners in the parks.

Walking through a light mist along the new harborfront development, I stop by a shrimp boat to buy a small bag of shrimp, pulled out of the fjord by a weather-beaten fisherman just hours ago. It’s been my happy ritual at this very spot since my mom first brought me to this little boat when I was a kid.

The commotion of a festive celebration draws me farther along the harborfront. A hundred Norwegians are swing-dancing on the sturdy boardwalk, which glistens as if pleased to be the city’s dance floor. Sometimes, good-looking, self-assured Norwegians annoy me with their perfection. But these strike me as extremely normal people — a little overweight, a little wrinkled, dancing in content twosomes in front of yacht club bars and restaurants most of them likely can’t afford. It’s mostly American-style two-step to recorded oldies — familiar tunes with unfamiliar Norwegian lyrics — like a line dance without cowboy hats or much of a line. Girls look up at their tall guys with big smiles.

Walking back to where my “writer’s cabin” used to be, I get nostalgic for the long-ago joy of settling into my humble stateroom, gathering the experiences of the day, and weaving them into an article — hoping to share new insights into this capital city — a city that still charms and challenges me all at once.

(This story is excerpted from my upcoming book, For the Love of Europe — collecting 100 of my favorite memories from a lifetime of European travel. It’s coming out in July, and available for pre-order. And you can also watch a video clip related to this story: Just visit  Rick Steves Classroom Europe  and search for “Oslo Norway.”)

Video: Peaceful European Winter Scenes

To celebrate the season, I’m sharing clips, extras, and behind-the-scenes notes from Rick Steves’ European Christmas.

As you watch this clip of choirs performing in Oslo and in Nürnberg, enjoy scenes of winter in Europe. While fields and squares are filled with color and vibrancy in the summer, the naked branches, solitary candles flickering in windows, and lonely vistas of winter offer a peaceful charm with the promise of life and renewal just around the corner.

The timeless beauty of physically coming together in great churches to make music in the dead of winter is such an integral part of celebrating the holidays. Watching this, I vow to enjoy making some music with friends in my community this Christmas, too. How about you?

Behind the Scenes: Filming Christmas in Norway

To celebrate the season, I’m sharing clips, extras and behind-the-scenes notes from Rick Steves’ European Christmas.

In writing the script for the special, I had to choose which countries would “make the cut.” I could fit only seven into the mix. Being Norwegian, I admit that I was biased…and Norway was destined to make the cut. But when we started filming, it looked like Norway would be a weak segment…so I needed to scramble.

Norway happened to be wet and warm when we visited, and the secular Norwegians don’t really do Christmas with the gusto I had imagined. I visited my very traditional cousin, only to find that their holiday celebration felt about as robust as Columbus Day.

But we did manage to go to Drøbak, the self-proclaimed Christmas capital of Norway, and take part in Santa Lucia Day, which brings everyone out to dance around the trees…with their crowns of real candles.

In Oslo, we had one night to get some music. When a concert we planned to film fell through at the last moment, I searched the entertainment listings and found the Norwegian Girls’ Choir performing in the oldest church in Oslo — the tiny, heavy-stone, Viking Age Gamle Aker Kirke. We drove there and arrived just half an hour before the concert began. With the crew double-parked in the dark, I ran in, found the director, pleaded my case…and he said, “Ya, sure.” We finished setting up just minutes before show time. The lights went out and an angelic choir of beautiful, blonde, candle-carrying girls processed in, filling the cold stone interior with a glowing light. As the harpist did her magic, I just sat in the back, feeling very thankful. This concert ended up giving us several of the best cuts on our European Christmas CD and some of the most beautiful photos for our European Christmas book.

Scheduling was also tricky. Certain events — such as a choir singing “Silent Night” in the church where it was first performed near Salzburg, Santa Lucia Day in Norway on December 13, and Christmas Eve Mass at the Vatican — were fixed, so we had to work our schedule around those. Each of the two crews generally had three or four days to film a region, and then one day to travel to the next. Our script was designed to playfully let the Christmas season build — but never quite reach a holiday climax — in each place we filmed. Then, in a festive finale, bells ring throughout the Continent as Christmas Day sweeps across Europe.

But I’m getting ahead of myself — that clip is on its way. First — like a video Advent calendar — we have lots more windows to open, peeking in on families and cultures and countries as Christmas approaches.