{"id":1600,"date":"2026-01-14T15:49:40","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T14:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/?p=1600"},"modified":"2026-01-30T16:10:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T15:10:29","slug":"finnish-oulu-kicks-off-its-year-as-european-capital-of-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/?p=1600","title":{"rendered":"Finnish Oulu kicks off its year as European Capital of Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Oulu-2026-scaled.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Oulu-2026-1024x768.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1602\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Oulu-2026-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Oulu-2026-300x225.jpeg 300w, http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Oulu-2026-768x576.jpeg 768w, http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Oulu-2026-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Oulu-2026-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Photo: Lars Bevanger<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;re a few weeks into 2026, which means two new cities have taken on the mantle as European Capitals of Culture. One is in Tren\u010d\u00edn in Slovakia, the other is Oulu in Northern Finland. I travelled to the former industrial city on the northernmost shores of the Bothnian Sea to check out what they are planning to offer visitors and locals throughout an exciting cultural year. Here is my report for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/inside-europe\/program-19041931\">Inside Europe on Deutsche Welle radio<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/NEW-BEVANGER-Oulu-2026.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re a few weeks into 2026, which means two new cities have taken on the mantle as European Capitals of Culture. One is in Tren\u010d\u00edn in Slovakia, the other is Oulu in Northern Finland. I travelled to the former industrial city on the northernmost shores of the Bothnian Sea to check out what they are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1603,"href":"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600\/revisions\/1603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bevanger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}