Basses and Mountains: Gamla Uppsala

Yesterday was forecast to be a nice day with minimal chance of rain and partly sunny skies. This meant only one thing: a trip to Gamla Uppsala! We met Charlotte around 10:00 AM for the approximately 8 mile roundtrip walk known as the Pilgrim's Walk, or in honor of St. Erik, the Eriksleden. Erik was a Swedish king and a saint who was beheaded in a "quarrel" in 1160. His head rolled down the hill near where the Cathedral now stands and a fresh water spring erupted at the place where it stopped. Sure, that makes sense. I'll go with it.

On the way to the official starting point (a pilgrimage generally doesn't start at a trailhead), we passed by the Botanical Garden.

Botanical Garden looking good in the morning light

We arrived shortly in the neighborhood of the Cathedral and started the official part of the journey which is marked throughout by signs like the one below.

We walked along the Fyris River for a while and then through some neighborhoods and along city streets.

Eventually, we made our way into the countryside and walked through forests and fields. At one point we heard gunfire from a shooting range. It's good to know the Swedes, like all of us red-blooded Americans, arm themselves to fight government tyranny whenever necessary. In their case, of course, that tyranny consists of providing free health care, a free college education, excellent public transportation, and well thought out public spaces.

On the way to Gamla Uppsala

Eventually we got our first glimpse of Gamla Uppsala. As the Wikipedia article says, it has been an important religious, political, and economic center for about 1700 years. It was the residence of Swedish kings for centuries and was an important pagan site before being taken over by the Catholic Church. Odin himself was rumored to have lived there in the distant past. Pagan belief was strong here and a renaissance occurred in the 1070s resulting in the temporary exile of the Christian king.

The Royal Mounds are burial mounds dating from the 5th and 6th centuries.

The Royal Mounds

We stopped to eat our lunches around noon at a handy picnic table (we brought sandwiches, cookies, and fruit) and then visited the Gamla Uppsala Museum.

Gamla Uppsala Museum

The museum was overrun by school children when we arrived, but eventually they left allowing us to play with the toys. Chain mail is heavy!

Charlotte as a fearsome Viking warrior

I'm fearsome too!

Here, I defend Sweden from a small horde of plague-carrying rats. Or at least, one stuffed rat.

Well, that was refreshing. Afterwards, we walked to the top of the nearest burial mound for a view of Uppsala in the distance, followed by a visit to the church.

Uppsala castle, cathedral, and construction cranes in the distance

The church of Old Uppsala

The church and bell tower

The church interior

Anders Celsius of temperature scale fame is buried here

Too bad no one was playing while we were there

The Bishop's Throne. Probably Sweden's oldest piece of furniture

A runestone!

Lilacs are in full bloom here now. It's amazing what a few degrees of latitude can do.

Archaeology in progress at Gamla Uppsala

We also visited an open-air museum nearby called Disagården. The idea is to show what a village in this area would have looked like in the mid-19th century. The buildings are collected from different parts of the Uppland region and date from 16th through the 19th centuries.