Turns out that Uppsala is not that far from Stockholm, so we decided to make a small detour to visit the town of Sigtuna. It is a small town that in some way reminded Géraldine of a cowboy movie set, with its small wooden houses so different from the palatial architecture of the capital. But its current bucolic character belittles the important role it had in Viking and early Christian times, when it vied for supremacy with Uppsala.
The small museum has a good time line connecting the remains that have been found from seal hunters of the stone age, early farmers spanning the bronze and iron age, to Roman times, the early fiefdoms, to the Viking age when trade with the far east increased considerably (500 to 900 AD), to the Middle Ages, and finally to the kingdom of Sweden in the late 1500's. Interestingly, we all think of the Vikings as plunderers, but they were in fact merchants that used their fast ships to move products of Scandinavia through the Baltic and Caspian seas, in exchange of the silver of the far east.
We also saw some fine examples of stone stele covered with runes of pre-Viking times.
To stretch our legs we made a half-hour hike to the hamlet of Viby, which is a frozen in time collection of farms from the 18th century, when rural construction was based on the use of heavy logs painted on a uniform dark red color, animal husbandry in close proximity to the farmers, and little input from the outside world. They built the enclosures for their animals by stabbing young saplings diagonally to the ground and piling them on each other with the guiding help of a couple of stakes every two meters or so. They form a very attractive pattern that extends throughout the hamlet.
We had lunch in Sigtuna (I had a type of Swedish bouillabaisse with fish and shellfish that was very tasty) and after that Géraldine took the wheel and drove us to Uppsala while I dozed by her side. Once in Uppsala it took us a while to find a good parking place where we could park for 4 hours, and from there went directly to visit the cathedral. Sweden was a Catholic country, but during the Reformation the king decreed that the state religion would change to Evangelic-Lutheran, so the cathedral is a peculiar combination of Gothic Catholic and stern Evangelic architecture. The cathedral dates back to the 13th century, but after the Reformation several of the side chapels were converted into tombs for the Swedish kings, and all saints were removed leaving behind empty platforms (more about this later). High bell towers were added in the 15th century, but a fire in 1702 destroyed all the glass windows and the bell towers. The cathedral was reconstructed in the early 1800s, at which time a new pair of towers, this time in harmony with the initial Gothic style were added. On the inside of the cathedral there are some fine mosaic murals.
The cathedral looks a bit empty because of the missing saints, so an enterprising minister decided to use the whole building as a gallery for an exposition by a British sculptor, Sean Henry, who represents the people you might find along the street in metal, and painted in very realistic colors. Very fine exposition, but weird to see a majestic cathedral used for this purpose.
After that we meandered through the buildings of the
University of Uppsala in direction to the castle. Unfortunately the castle
itself was closed (Monday closure), but we were able to visit the outside, the
fortifications, and the garden (which is now the botanical garden of the
university). We ended our walk on a bench at the edge of the Fyris River, to
share with many happy locals the fresh calm atmosphere of the afternoon.
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