Hewo, SGland! I hope your day is going along great! I wanted to write another blog, but this time on my trip to Sweden! I noticed that I've never really talked about it. So, here's a post dedicated to it!
I went to Sweden in August 2023 and it was my first time in Europe! Why Sweden? I had a friend there, so I went to visit. I am not sure if Sweden would have been my first choice if it wasn't for that reason, because Sweden is really expensive for Canadians. Belgium was actually more affordable, but since I had a place to stay, this is why I chose Sweden!
I was pretty excited to finally step foot on a really old country, because I am a historian and I am in love with castles, so I was really looking forward to seeing castles. Although the castles in Sweden are not like the castles in France or England, I got to see some really pretty ones. And old ones! The yellow castle once belonged to Axel von Fersen, who was Marie-Antoinette's lover!
This castle had a really nice museum in it! It had a lot of paintings, old castle furniture, and Renaissance clothing in display!
This castle is where the Sture murders happened. I believe what happened is that in the 1500's, the King of Sweden, Erik XIV, got five nobles who were imprisoned there killed, and people were outraged at this. It is said that at that time, the King had some serious mental illnesses.
As you can see, Swedish castles are very... how can I say.... rectangle-shaped? I can definitely see a difference between Swedish castles and castles in England for instance. It was really nice to see, because as I have studied England history, I was used at seeing a lot of castles with towers, barricades and stuff, so it was really nice to see something different.
This piece was by far my favourite! It was inside a church not far from Uppsala. The paint that you see is the original one; they haven't retouched it a single time since it was painted in the 1400's! Some parts are faded, but most of it is still there, and it was really amazing to see!
There were indeed a lot of churched in Sweden.... a lot. One of the famous ones is the Uppsala cathedral. It was soooooooo high! I was really pleased to finally see a real cathedral, an old one, because where I am, we do have one but it isn't really old...
Here are the other churches we bumped into (there are a lot....)
That one!
Also that one!
And that one....
That one....
Another one....
Yeah, so many of them....
And I should not forget the Viking churches and castles!
I was super excited to see something that was 1000 years old! Yes, I was like a kid in front of a candy store... I don't know, I just like old stuff.
Unfortunately, I don't know much about Swedish history, but luckily, we bumped into a free tour when we visited the Stockholm museum, so I got to learn a bit of it. It was interesting to learn that Sweden did not see the Middle Ages until about the year 1000 (mostly in Europe, we pinpoint the Middle Ages between the year 500 and 1500).
There were also some very nice parks!
I won't post all my pictures here, but if you want to see all my trip videos, my Tiktok handle is dollyxpanda! I try to post a lot on there.
I spent 5 days in Sweden (yes, I know, it wasn't super long) and I visited Sigtuna, Vasteras (sorry, I cannot put the right accents on letters using my keyboard...), Stockholm and Uppsala. I am not sure if I will go back to Sweden, since there are so many more countries in Europe I want to visit. Next time, I would like to visit England, Germany and Poland.
Next blog, I will be posting about my trip to Japan. I am going back there in May, visiting the region of Hokkaido!
