Old Town Stockholm (Gamla Stan)

We took a guided tour of medieval Stockholm strolling among the narrow cobblestone alleys and buildings, ending up at the Black Friar's Monastery.

The town dates back to the 13th century, and consists of medieval alleyways, cobbled streets, and archaic architecture. North German architecture has had a strong influence in the Old Town's construction.

Stortorget is the name of the scenic large square in the centre of Gamla Stan, which is surrounded by old merchants' houses including the Stockholm Stock Exchange Building. The square was the site of the Stockholm Bloodbath, where Swedish noblemen were massacred by the Danish King Christian II in November, 1520. The following revolt and civil war led to the dissolution of the Kalmar Union and the subsequent election of King Gustav I.

As well as being home to the Stockholm Cathedral, the Nobel Museum, and the Riddarholm church, Gamla stan also boasts Kungliga slottet, Sweden's baroque Royal Palace, built in the 18th century after the previous palace Tre Kronor burned down. The House of Nobility (Riddarhuset) is on the north-western corner of Gamla stan.

Antique Shop

Tall, narrow buildings.

Cobblestone Street

Saint George and the Dragon

Vasa Museum, Stockholm

THE VASA MUSEUM

The Vasa Museum is a maritime museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Located on the island of Djurgården, the museum displays the only almost fully intact 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged, the 64-gun warship Vasa that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. The Vasa Museum opened in 1990 and, according to the official web site, is the most visited museum in Scandinavia.


HIS MAJESTY´S SHIP

It took almost two years (1626-1627) to build Vasa. From dawn to dusk, carpenters, sawyers, smiths, ropelayers, sailmakers, painters, carvers, gun carriage makers and other specialists struggled to complete the navy’s great, new ship. The king, Gustav II Adolf, visited the shipyard to inspect the work.

Vasa was splendid, a hull built of more than a thousand oak trees with 64 cannon, masts over 50 meters high and hundreds of painted and gilded sculptures.

THE MAIDEN VOYAGE

On Sunday, the 10th of August, 1628, Vasa lay rigged and ready for sea just below the royal palace Tre Kronor. Ballast, guns and ammunition were all on board.

On the quays and shores along Strömmen, an excited public waited to watch the ship leave Stockholm and celebrate her departure.

Over a hundred crewmen were on board, as well as women and children. The crew had permission to take family and guests along for the first part of the passage through the Archipelago.

THE DISASTER

For the first few hundred meters, Vasa was warped along the waterfront with cables from the shore. The ship did not begin to sail until she reached what is now Slussen. Sailors climbed the rigging to set four of Vasa’s ten sails. A salute was fired, and Vasa slowly began her maiden voyage.

Once Vasa came out from under the lee of the Södermalm cliffs, the sails could catch the wind, but the ship was tender and heeled over to port, then heeled again, even farther. Water rushed in through the open gunports and the ship’s fate was decided. Vasa sank, after sailing barely 1300 meters.

The crew threw themselves into the water or clung to the rigging until rescued, but not all managed to save themselves. Eyewitnesses differ on the exact numbers, but perhaps 30 of approximately 150 people on board died in the loss. After the ship was raised in 1961, the remains of at least 16 people were found.

WHY DID VASA SINK?

The news of the sinking reached the Swedish king, who was in Prussia, after two weeks. The disaster had to be the result of “foolishness and incompetence,” and the guilty must be punished, he wrote to the Royal Council in Stockholm. What exactly lay behind the loss could not be determined with certainty in the inquest held in the palace, but the ship’s lack of stability was a fact: the underwater part of the hull was too small and the ballast insufficient in relation to the rig and cannon. The leaders of the inquest believed that the ship was well built but incorrectly proportioned. After Vasa, many successful ships with two or even three gundecks were built, so something must have been learned from the disaster.

WHOSE FAULT WAS IT?

Vice Admiral Klas Fleming, partly. He had been present before the ship sailed, when the captain demonstrated how crank the ship was by having 30 men run back and forth across the upper deck. On their third pass, the ship was ready to capsize at the quay. The admiral was heard to say that he wished the king were there.

King Gustav II Adolf, partly. He ordered a large ship with so many heavy-calibre cannon, and approved the ship’s dimensions.

Master shipwright Henrik Hybertsson, partly. He was a talented shipbuilder who had delivered several successful ships to the navy, but he had too little experience with building ships with two gundecks.

Captain Söfring Hansson, ultimately. Vasa’s sinking can also be blamed on the captain. It would have been safer to sail the ship with the lower gunports closed, since he knew the ship was unstable. It might have been possible to redistribute weight in the ship or even rebuild it. If the inquest were held today, the captain would probably be held responsible.

http://www.vasamuseet.se

One of the unfortunate individuals who died on the Vasa.

Cannon Balls

Tom Ward, Fulbright Fellow and Craftsman who recreated one of the brass cannons. http://www.vasamuseet.se/en/The-Ship/Creating-the-Cannon/Tom-Ward/
www.tepestcraft.com

Linnetradgarden

We visited the oldest botanical garden in Sweden and many other countries founded in 1655 by Olaf Rudbeck the Elder. It is laid out in the French Style and restored following Linnaeus' and Carl Hårleman's design from 1745. Today approximately 1300 species are grown here. All known to have been cultivated by Linnaeus and arranged according to his own system. We received a guided tour of the museum which was Linnaeus' town home for around 30 years.

Linnetradgarden

Passion Flower

Tired Feet

Ausberg Cabinet

Cabinets of curiosities (also known as Kunstkammer, Wunderkammer, Cabinets of Wonder, orwonder-rooms) were encyclopedic collections of types of objects whose categorical boundaries were, in Renaissance Europe, yet to be defined. Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history (sometimes faked), geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art (including cabinet paintings) and antiquities.

These were cabinets in the sense of pieces of furniture, made from all imaginable exotic and expensive materials and filled with contents and ornamental details intended to reflect the entire cosmos on a miniature scale. The best preserved example is the one given by the city of Augsburg to King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in 1632, which is kept in the Museum Gustavianum in Uppsala.

Art Chamber

Optics Curiosity

Anatomical Theatre, Uppsala University

An anatomical theatre was an institution used in teaching anatomy at early modern universities.

The theatre was usually a room of roughly amphitheatrical shape, in the centre of which would stand the table on which the dissections of human or animal bodies took place. Around this table were several circular, elliptic or octagonal tiers with railings, where students or other observers could stand and get a good view of the dissection almost from above and unencumbered by the spectators in the rows in front.  It was common to display skeletons at some place in the theatre; in Leiden, 17th-century depictions show that the living observers were actually accompanied in the rows by a large number of animal and human skeletons, some of which held banners with inscriptions such as Memento mori, or, freely translated, "Remember, you will die".

The anatomical theatre completed in 1663 by medical professor and amateur architect Olaus Rudbeck for the University of Uppsala is located in the idiosyncratic cupola which Rudbeck placed on top of the Gustavianum building, at the time the main building of the university. Rudbeck had spent time in Leiden, and both the anatomical theatre and the botanical garden he founded in Uppsala in 1655 were influenced by his experiences there.

Anatomical Theatre, Uppsala

Who can pass up a good dissection on the old slab?

Carolina Redeviva University Library

Interior of one of the oldest book rooms in Carolina Rediviva, Uppsala, Sweden.

We received a guided tour of the special collections at Carolina Redeviva Uppsala University Library. Carolina Rediviva is the main building of the Uppsala University Library in Uppsala, Sweden. The building was begun in 1820 and completed in 1841. The original architect was Carl Fredrik Sundvall. Later additions to the building have been designed by Axel Johan Anderberg and Peter Celsing. The name, literally "Carolina Revived", was given in remembrance of the oldAcademia Carolina building, which had functioned as university library for most of the 18th century. Carolina Rediviva is the oldest and largest university library building in the country. It is also the site where the Codex Argenteus and the Cancionero de Upsala are kept.

Memoires Pour Servir a L'Histoire Des Insects Par Charles De Geer

Caroli Linnaei Methodus Avium Sveticarum

Carl Clerk (1709-1765), Swedish entomologist and arachnologist

Double Elephant-Sized Folio

Uppsala Cathedral

Uppsala Cathedral is located between Uppsala University and the River Fyris in the centre of Uppsala, southeastern Sweden.

The cathedral dates back to the late 13th century and at a height of 118.7 metres (389 ft), it is the tallest church building in the Nordic countries and Scandinavia. Originally built under Roman Catholicism, it was used for coronations of Swedish monarchs for a lengthy period following the Protestant Reformation. Several of its chapels were converted to house the tombs of Swedish monarchs, including Gustav Vasa and John III. Carolus Linnaeus, Olaus Rudbeck, Emanuel Swedenborg, and several archbishops are also buried here.

The church was designed in the French Gothic style by French architects including Étienne de Bonneuil. It is in the form of a cross formed by the nave and transept. Most of the structure was built between 1272 and 1420 but the western end was completed only in the middle of the 15th century. Twin towers were built shortly afterwards on the west end of the church. High spires were added later, but after a fire in 1702, they were adorned with low helmets by Carl Hårleman in 1735. They were completely redesigned by Helgo Zetterwall who undertook substantial changes to the building in the 1880s. The cathedral's principal construction material is brick but the pillars and many details are of Gotland limestone.The vaults were all built according to the original 13th century plan although some of them were erected as late as around 1440. In addition to the artwork in the funeral chapels, several of the church's older furnishings can be seen in the Treasury Museum. In 1702, many features were destroyed in a major fire. During the renovation work carried out in the 1970s, many of the medieval frescoes which had been whitewashed over after the Reformation were uncovered and restored. the afternoon we visited the oldest botanical garden in Sweden (1655) as well the museum which was Linnaeus' town home for about 30 years.

Uppsala Cathedral

Interior Uppsala Cathedral