Sweden breaks: The only way is Uppsala for Scandinavian beauty
All very pointed: Uppsala's history as Sweden's capital is still visible in the bulk of its Domkyrkan cathedralFor people in Uppsala it's a particularly cruel affliction because there's so much for them to appreciate. Lying 45 miles north-west of Stockholm, this picturesque town - with its cream-coloured 18th century buildings lining the riverfront and a vast wilderness only an hour's drive north - was once Sweden's capital. It has the country's oldest cathedral and university, and was home to its greatest scientist, the botanist Carl Linnaeus.To understand Uppsala's history, you need to start at the Viking sites of Valsgarde and Gamla Uppsala, a few miles outside the city. It was once possible to sail a ship from here to the Baltic, do a spot of pillaging and bring the spoils back to your longhouse.
More...
- More sublime Scandinavia in our Sweden section
- A weekend in Gothenburg will leave you refreshed
- On the trail of Stieg Larsson in Stockholm
Waterworld: Uppsala offers access to pristine areas of the Swedish wildernesst's remarkably quiet, too. When three-quarters of the medieval city was destroyed by fire in 1702, it was rebuilt in the neo-classical style, creating the elegant streets celebrated in the film Fanny And Alexander (the director, Ingmar Bergman, spent much of his childhood here). A swathe was cut through the middle by Sixties developers, but the skyline and the buildings along the River Fyrisan remain as splendid as they were 300 years ago.One of the brightest stars of that century was Carl Linnaeus, who ingeniously - and scandalously - devised a system for classifying plants based on their sexuality. For anyone interested in flowers, his house and garden on Svartbacksgatan are places of pilgrimage.You can also visit his country estate at Hammarby, eight miles outside the city. With its cases of stuffed animals and home dissecting table, the house provides a fascinating snapshot of 18th century scientific life. Unfortunately, the garden took a battering from Linnaeus's menagerie, which included a camel and racoon, and more seriously from regular floods. It has now been restored, complete with formal walks, orangery and even monkey houses (though not monkeys).The Gothic Domkyrkan is the largest cathedral in Scandinavia. The early Uppsalans could afford only brick for the exterior, but inside, the great vaulted roof rises in a high pile of grey stone. For a Lutheran cathedral it has some surprising contents, including a gold-plated chest housing the bones of St Erik.The nearby university library has treasures of its own, among them the ! 6th-cent ury Silver Bible and a glorious early map of the northern ocean in which behemoths rule the waves and sledges scoot across frozen seas.If you want to get a real feeling for Scandinavian mythology, you need to venture outside the city for some trollskogsvandring. This is another useful word, meaning 'wandering through the troll wood', and it's applied to Fiby Urskog, a nature reserve half-an-hour's drive from Uppsala on a road dwarfed by enormous boulders left over from the Ice Age.With soaring pines, larches and birches, a small river running through the middle and deep banks of moss, it's a most romantic place. There weren't any trolls, but walkers are sometimes lucky enough to catch sight of a moose.From Fiby Urskog we headed 50 miles north to a far larger reserve, the Frnebofjrden National Park - 25,000 acres of the closest Europe gets to wilderness. Along the way, farmland gave way to thick forest, stretching - so our guide claimed - all the way to the Arctic Circle.
Stately pile: Uppsala's castle, with its botanical gardens alongside, is a pleasant spot for a leafy strollThe heart of Frnebofjrden is a huge expanse of water edged with sandy beaches and containing more than 200 small islands. It looks like an inland sea; in fact, it is part of the Dallven River. You can hire a canoe to explore it, sleep in an open-sided 'wind shelter', and fish for brown trout.The park lies on a biological border between central and northern Sweden, and as a result it has an extraordinary mixture of trees - from Lapland willows to oak. But it's also home to vicious mosquitoes, so avoid high summer and try late spring or early autumn.Taking a different road back to the city, we passed the small town of Morgongava, home to an elk park. The name, our guide told us, was one of the most beautiful in Sweden, translating as 'morning gift'. To my ear 'Uppsala' takes a lot of beating.
Comments