"A short afternoon in Uppsala" a Uppsala Travel Page by martin_nl

After our infamous Roxette Room Service tour that you can read about on my homepage we stayed a week longer in Stockholm. But since we had already been to Stockholm a few times, we thought it would be fun to visit another city. Uppsala was our choice and so we spend half a day here. To start with I can already tell you that half a day is much too short to see this beautiful city, especially when you are visting in autumn or winter. Because of this fact we couldn't see much of the city, but what we saw was stunning. While it was still light we did a very short tour around town the city after which we did some record hunting in some of the many record shops Uppsala has to offer. After that at about 18:00hrs we returned to Stockholm.

On this page most info was taken from http://www.uppsala.se/ the official Uppsala homepage.

No Swedish town has such a long history as Uppsala. Even in the 6th century the area was a stronghold for politics and religion. From here the Vikings set out on their expeditions with their ships and at the pagan temple there were festivals where men and animals were sacrificed to placate the gods. The Svea king himself was the High Priest, a lineal descendant, said to derive his origin from the pagan gods.

Remaining as proof of this there are the burial mounds at Old Uppsala. That is where the Vikings buried three of their kings.

History is always present in Uppsala and the ancient monuments characterize the townscape even today. You will not see any Vikings or warlords in the alleys but their myths and stories will live on. In Old Uppsala you can still attend a " Viking carousal " drinking mead from mead horns and the castle houses a museum of wax figures where historical events are brought to life by means of light and sound effects. The King and his court, however, have moved out and the castle has been converted into a building for the Uppsala residents themselves. Everyone is welcome here. You will among other things find the City art museum, several university institutions and a spacious banqueting hall.