A pause in Luleå, 27 - 30 June 2019

Luleå, a pause on our summer transhumance, after already 626.3 nautical miles in 5 weeks. Stéphane is getting back home after more than four weeks on board, and Kaja and Mišo are getting in for the next couple of weeks.

The new crew

As you can imagine, this is the opportunity to shop, to wash, to fix things, to clean, to recover and enjoy for a few days staying still. But Luleå has more than that to offer...
The old Luleå, called Gammelstad, is in the Unesco world heritage for its church town.Such church towns were typical of Scandinavia where people were staying in their farms at a distance from the town, but were gathering on Sunday in the town church for the service and to meet each others. So, they developed small cottages around the church where all farmers from the neighbourhood could come and stay for the weekend close to the church, as travelling from their farms would take too long for a single day.

The old church town is amazingly well preserved, with streets bordered by these small cottages painter Falun red.

A thousand years ago, the level of the water was ten metres higher than today, and the church was on an island in the Luleå archipelago, at the mouth of the Luleå river.

The building of the stone church started in the fifteen century. In 1621, Luleå became officially a city allowed to collect taxes for the region. This generated prosperity to the city but in 1649, the harbour became too shallow and was moved closer to the coast, to Luleå "new town". Today, the old Luleå is 16 kilometres away from the marina where we are.

The Luleå church is the largest medieval church in the Norrland province. Its construction was achieved in 1492 and it was used as a stronghold in time old unrest.

The pulpit was sculpted in the baroque style in 1712 by Nils Jacobsson Fluur and painted in 1745.

The altar of the church is one of the finest altar piece in Sweden. It includes wooden figures recounting the passion of Christ.. It was built in Antwerp around 1520

The altar of the Nederluleå church

Interestingly, the Luleå church is decorated with frescoes painted by the Albertus Pictor workshop. During the Swedish reformation in the XVIII century, frescoes were painted over, like in many similar churches around. However, they were restored in 1909.

Pictor paintings on the ceiling of the church

The triumphant crucifix, from an unknown master, is lit by the sun around the summer solstice.

Triumphant crucifix

The scene below is extracted from the old testament in the book of numbers. The scouts were sent by Moses to find-out a place where the Israelites could settled. These scouts found out the grape valley and brought back grapes to Moses. This scene appears in many churches painted by Albertus Pictor, e.g. in the Hakerberga church. The paintings have suffered from being covered and restored.

Scouts carrying grapes

Details from the pulpit.