Uppsala Slott!

Tuesday, January 25th -

Last night I went to the Reception of Exchange and Master's Students by the Vice Chancellor of Uppsala University in the main university building.  I took the first bus that arrived with the assumption that it would take me generally in the right direction.  Probably not the best idea, but it did get me closer.  It was a very empty bus whizzing past stops as I compared the stops listed in the bus schedule with my map of town to figure out which one to get off at.  I think I would have been fine getting off a stop or two later in the end, but I played it safe and got off at a place whose location was readily visible on my map.  It was then a somewhat lengthy walk to the the main university building, given the time constraints.  But eventually I got to the general area.  I didn't know quite how to get to the main university building yet, though, especially from that direction (the west), and saw a building that looked approximately like what I expected it to look like.  As I approached I thought it seemed a bit higher up on a hill than I remembered the main building being, but I was already halfway up the hill, so I kept going.  Eventually I realized this was the castle (Swedish: slott)!  At that point I was nearly at the castle, so I went to the top and got a nice view of the city before heading back down and continuing on in the (correct) direction of the main university building.  Even at night the castle was impressive, so I decided I had to come back in the daytime to get an even better view as well as pictures.

The reception was more of a meet-and-greet than a lengthy speech, although the history of the building was interesting.  I probably could have gotten better pictures with flash, but this picture illustrates the style of the building:

 Very opulent, with lots of oil paintings, including several of monarchs, and quite a bit of marble and gold.  It reminded me a bit of Versailles.  It was built starting in 1877 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the university, went over budget by 400%, and took 11 years to build.  But it was the first building in Sweden to have electric lighting, central heating, and telephones, all in the same building.  And it most certainly is a very nice building.

So today I made my way back to the castle.  Being high up on a hill above the town, I was at last able to get a picture of most of the cathedral while making my way up to the castle:

 The castle was just as impressive as I'd hoped, and seemed to have very light traffic, probably due to the season.  To the west was an excellent view of the botanical gardens, which, although not much of gardens this time of year, still had nice symmetrical shrubberies and plenty of snow:

 Yes, that's a beautiful sunset at 3:25 PM.  It didn't really seem dark at that point, but it does get dark early here, even more than a month after the shortest day of the year.  Supposedly there's an orangery inside the botanical gardens, which would seem an odd site this time of year indeed.  Imagine - I might see orange trees for the first time in Sweden!

To the west, the castle was fortified in the Italian style, with star-shaped bastions.  This provided an advantage in that the defenders could fire on attackers at the walls while not exposing themselves.  The walls are relatively short compared to medieval standards (the castle was built around 1550 and rebuilt after a fire in the early 1700s), but thick, to resist cannon fire.  I went up onto the top of the bastion that was accessible, and found the cannons on top of the bastion.  Like they were centuries ago, the cannons here are trained on the cathedral.

This bastion is known as the "bishop controller", for obvious reasons.  This design first came about not long after Sweden's switch to Protestantism, which wasn't entirely popular.  The cannons trained on the cathedral served to reinforce the point that it was the King, not the bishops, who made such decisions.  It does appear that these cannons were never fired, at least in this direction.

To the east, the hill in front of the castle was much steeper, and the Italian-style bastions were not necessary - a simple wall in combination with the hill was adequate.  On this side you can see downtown Uppsala:

 The conspicuous building with the odd architecture near the middle of the picture is the concert hall.  It was designed by a famous architect, although I'm no better at remembering architects than I was in 11th grade (it wasn't Frank Lloyd Wright or I.M. Pei).  Locals seem to be split on whether they like the architecture or find it ugly.  For a larger picture of it, see the previous post "IKEA and Sledding".

As for the castle itself, here is a picture from the east:

According to the signs, the castle is in the French Classical style.  The vast majority of the present castle, including the pictured part, is from the 1700s.  A small part of the original 1550s building remains, and is very noticeably different.  My pictures of it are less-than-impressive, though, as my camera's battery very much disliked the cold temperatures (-0 Celsius according to a bank-style sign) and went from near-full capacity to almost-empty in the matter of a few pictures, so I had to be conservative with pictures.

Most enjoyable was standing at a corner along the southwestern bastion (the one not pointing towards the cathedral) and simply taking in the excellent view of the western part of the city.  It was clear from the lack of recent footprints that no one else had been there today, likely due to the light snow, wind, and temperatures, and it was quite peaceful. Twenty feet below the city continued to operate as normal, but there was nothing but snow and a good view from where I was.  It was really neat to be able to freely roam the grounds of a 1550s/1700s castle and find the best views for myself.

The eastern hill was indeed steep, and since I found a path down it, I followed it.  This picture is the best of the ones I have at illustrating the height of the hill:

 It was abundantly clear why it would be extraordinarily difficult for any army to attack up this hill, and why relatively simple defenses were adequate in this direction.

I never did find a way inside the castle, although I'd be surprised if it isn't open for tourists at some point.  So after descending the hill, I made my way back towards the central station, cold from the wind on top of the hill as much as the temperatures, but very glad I had made my way out to the castle.