Tag Archives: Sweden

Come On Up To The Square

The Stortorget, Malmo’s largest square, is adorned with a collection of the most playful and imaginative bronze statues we have come across.

*Charles XI –* *Stortorget, Malmö, Sweden*

*Emigranterna “The Emigrants” – Stortorget, Malmö, Sweden*

Arcades & Passageways

Arcades and passageways are an absolute necessity in all the older cities we’ve visited. With long blocks of four and five story buildings packed cheek to jowl they make passing from one block to the next much less burdensome and saves miles of circumnavigating city streets to get from one block to the next. They also create access to closed off courtyards and gardens.

Nyboder

Nyboder means new small houses. This historic row house district was the former Naval barracks. Construction of the district was begun in 1631 by Christian IV to house Navy personnel and their families. Nyboder is very much associated with their yellow color named “Nyboder yellow” to refer to the exact hue of yellow. Interestedly the original color of the development was red and white.

The neighborhood has had a bit of a grim past. On December 16, 1658 a gunpowder storage building just north of Nyboder exploded, damaging or demolishing many houses and causing numerous casualties.

In 1668 the city’s gallows were moved to the district. In 1677 another bleak neighbor moved in when the Copenhagen Stocks House or military prison was built just a little to the south. it was opened to civilian prisoners in 1741 and held people sentenced to “slavery”, meaning prisoners sentenced to penal labor in irons. Prisoners were classified as “honest” and “dishonest”. The latter were beaten at the whipping post, a punishment that connoted a severe loss of honor. In 1783 an even larger facility was opened when the Greater Stocks House was built next to the old building and held 600 “slaves”. The use of “severe examination” or torture was finally abolished in 1837.

From early on, the area also included a guardhouse which had an external bell used to gather people in the event of a military attack or fire. The building also contained a jail, where trouble-making residents were deposited.

Tjolöholm Castle – A Private Utopia

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Now I’m really confused. They refer to Tjolöholm as a castle, but it seems to me to be the very definition of a palace or a mansion or even a country estate, but not a castle. It was designed in the Arts and Craft style to be the quintessential British country house by architect Lars Israel Wahlman, a man who never set foot in the British Isles. The project began in 1892 shortly after power couple James Fredrik and Blanche Dickson purchased this amazing piece of property. Planning the Elizabethan mansion took six years and then another six years to finish construction.

The Dicksons, of Scottish ancestry, were the third generation to make Gothenburg their home where James Fredrik ran the trading company Dickson & Co. founded by his grandfather in 1816. They were enormously successful and used their fortune to construct their idea of a utopian estate. The mansion itself offers everything the gentry could wish for, stables full of thoroughbred racehorses and scores of the most exquisite carriages of the day. Amazing views over the water of Kungsbacka Fjord to the small islands beyond. A lovely beach for swimming complete with a bath and boathouse. The house itself has all the modern conveniences of the day, including indoor plumbing, electric lights, central heating and even a vacuum cleaning system. Everything in the house and on the grounds is of the highest quality and the most pristine design.

The scrollwork above the stove reads: As Time Can Be Redeemed At No Cost – Bestow It Well – Let No Hour Be Lost

Blanche was convinced that a happy estate required happy workers and that called for quality housing in an idyllic setting. She designed and built a lovely little village where each family has a nice cottage with room for the children to play and a yard where each family could have a small vegetable patch. She even had a church built to insure the families got the necessary religious training.

At the end of the day this is sadly a bit of a cautionary tale. Shortly before construction began James Fredrik was celebrating at the Grand Hotel in Gothenburg. He cut himself opening a bottle of wine and wrapped the foil around his finger to stanch the bleeding. He died of blood poisoning a week later. A heartbroken Blanche toughened up, took control of the construction and finished the project. Not two years later she sailed to Ceylon to visit her brothers tea farm, ate some bad fruit on the ship and died of dysentery on the return trip to Europe. She was buried at sea in the Indian Ocean.

Once again the old wisdom rings true, don’t save your dreams for another day, do it now while fate allows.

A Castle Or A Palace?

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Just what is the difference between a castle and a palace? A docent recently told me that castles were built as fortifications where as palaces are essentially big fancy houses. I think there’s a little more to it. Castles are almost designed to be incredibly uncomfortable. They are cold, drafty and intensionally hard to get in to with narrow, steep and winding stairways. Palaces are plush, amazingly adorned and some are pretty cushy. Their commonality lies in the fact that they are both designed to impress. Castles, as well as providing protection from the disgusting rabble just outside the gates, were built to impress your enemies with your size and might. The sheer bulk of the structure could strike fear in the hearts of your foe as his cannon balls bounced off the 12’ thick walls. Just approaching them could be dangerous. Arrows could rain out of the little slit windows at a moments notice. Hot oil could pour down on your head from the 100’ ramparts. It both looked and felt impregnable. Now a palace was built to impress in a whole different way. Your wealth is your fortification, your cannons are loaded with political and social connections. To gain entrance to a castle you might have to scale a wall, cross a moat, walk under a murder hole and hack your way through a battalion of blood-thirsty mercenaries. Where as getting into the palace may only involve passing through an army of groundskeepers and a phalanx of maids and butlers but could be just as daunting a task. At some point wealth and status becomes as powerful a weapon as the sword and the cannon.

Örebro Castle

Kärnan

Gripsholm Slott

Gripsholm is an amazing property. Although never attacked it most definitely began its life as a fortress when Bo Jonsson Grips built the first structure on the little island in 1370. It became a monastery in the 1400s until King Gustav I took over. In 1526 he both reinforced the fortifications and turned it into one of the royal residences. The Slott was renovated in 1773 and again between 1889 and 1894, getting a little more palace-like each time. Most of the monarchs from the 16th through the 18th century spent considerable time in Gripsholm.

In summer all the royal residences have a garden that depicts the Crown.

The House of Vasa

In the words of the great Mel Brooks in The History of the World Part 2, “It’s good to be the King!”, unless, of course, you get exiled or imprisoned or poisoned by your power hungry brother or unscrupulous children. It would appear that Kings don’t really have any friends. Even their closest advisors will turn on a dime.

Gustav was elected King by the Swedish Parliament but quickly decided that harmony could only be achieved if his heirs replaced him. After his death his first son Erik became King but Erik didn’t trust his brother Johan. He charged him with high treason and imprisoned him with his wife in a small two room apartment for four years. When Johan was finally released he immediately imprisoned Erik in the same apartment and began to slowly poison him. Johan took over but died in 1592. Johan’s son Sigismund was supposed to became king but his Uncle Charles IX had a different plan. He quickly imprisoned his nephew and eventually exiled and deposed him. So much for family harmony.

In all the portraits of the House of Vasa the men wear tights or, more accurately, silk stockings. No there were no pilate classes and they weren’t dancers. In the 16th century what made a man beautiful were his legs and particularly shapely calves. This was so important that when Erik XIV tried to arrange a marriage with Elizabeth I of England he created this portrait with the hope that she would be so smitten with his appearance that it would seal the deal. In order to hedge his bets he decided that one of the stable boys had the nicest legs in the castle and had the painter replace his legs with the boy’s. Queen Elizabeth didn’t take the bait but she did keep the portrait.

Charles IX has a comb-over that would put Trump to shame. He braided the side bits and then fashioned them into a cross to express his Catholic devotion.

This Rune Stone was erected in the 11th century to honor Ingvar the Far-Travelled. At least twenty-six Ingvar Runestones refer to Swedish warriors who went out with Ingvar on his expedition to Russia, down the Volgar River and on to the Middle East to war against the Saracens.

The inscription reads;

They fared like men far after gold and in the east gave the eagle food. They died southward in Serkland.

To give the eagle food is to kill your enemy.

The Wendi Files – Norse Sagas

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Viking Attitude

I’ve wandered through Scandinavia like a bit player in the Norse Sagas, those timeless myths filled with blood, battles and debauchery. Only my voyage consists of beer, buses and bargain basements. Maybe not as dangerous but just as exhausting. At this point in the trip I’m downright tuckered out. I have been trudging around after Wendi as she’s pillaged her way through Iceland, Norway and Sweden for weeks. I’m always a couple steps slow and a few beats behind like a bass player that can’t catch up to the rest of the band. It seems she is always looking back at me with that “will you hurry up” look on her face.

Let’s Go

And hats! What’s with the hats? Every silly hat from Reykjavik to Stockholm has magically ended up on her head, coupled with a goofy grin. She doesn’t want to bring them home so, I suppose, that’s good.