Hovedøen…

I am quite bored with my walking routes, so I try to expand and go to new places. And then it hit me last tuesday. We have 13 big and small islands just outside the city. And there is a ferry that commutes between many of them.

So I decided to visit one of the largest, Hovedøen, or Hovedøya. This is an island which is only 0.4 sq km big, but have been important in the life of Oslo since 1147. Then a monastery was opened there. It is in ruins now, but you can see the size of the old monastery clearly, and it was huge.

Because of a conflict with the military, the monastery was looted and burned down in 1532. Later it has been pillaged to construct other buildings on the island.

The island has held an strategic position in the defense of Oslo. Norway was in a forced union with Denmark under the Napoleonic war, and then two cannon batteries were built to protect Oslo and Akershus fortress. The cannons are still there.

All prints are the John S Lens and BlacKeys B+W Film.