Uppsala and Stockholm

My friends live right in between Uppsala and Stockholm, so I spent a day walking around each of them. Uppsala was pretty cool, especially Gamla Uppsala, or "Old Uppsala." There were burial mounds where the first settlers in this area buried their people with various objects, much like the Native American mounds at home.



Uppsala also has a very old and well-renowned university, founded in the 1400s. We walked along the river, set up with fish steps so that the fish who come up stream can make it up the river, went to the Gustavianum Museum and learned about the history of Uppsala University, ate traditional Swedish fish dishes and desserts (hot rosehip soup with ice cream!), and toured the War and Peace Museum, giving a little bit of the background on Sweden's neutrality policy and the Nobel Peace Prize winners.

Stockholm was very cool too - one of the neatest cities I've been in. I started at the Vasa Museum where this ship set sail on its maiden voyage in 1628 and sunk right in the harbor after only about 20 minutes. 333 years later, it was excavated and because the water is not very salty in the harbor, 95% of the ship was preserved and reconstructed!!!


I also walked around Skansen, which is a humongous outdoor museum with a traditional nordic town square, windmill, chapel, ironworks area, etc. from several hundred years ago. There are also nordic animals in a zoo type setting - moose and elk, bears, wolves, wolverines (didn't see that one though), and owls. And you can see the entire city between the changing leaves!


Next was Södermalm, a section in the south of Stockholm with cute cobblestone streets and amazing views of the city and Gamla Stan (old Stockholm). I finished with a walk around Gamla Stan, but by this time it was raining pretty steadily and a car had splashed me, pretty much soaking my pantleg. So it was time to go home! But I loved Stockholm and Sweden and a HUGE thanks to JdM and KdM for treating me to such a wonderful time!!!