Wandering Chopsticks: Vietnamese Food, Recipes, and More: Uppsala

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Uppsala - Sweden: Birthplace of Celsius

We couldn't linger long amongst the burial mounds of Gamla Uppsala (old Uppsala) since we still had to hit up "new" Uppsala. If you liked the rune stones at Sigtuna, you're in for another treat.

I revert back to good old Rick Steves' Scandinavia again for information. Scandinavia's first university was founded in Uppsala in 1477. Famous graduates included Carl Linnaeus and Anders Celsius. The university's library houses the Silver Bible (Codex Argenteus), so named because it was written in silver ink in the 6th century. It contains a 4th century translation of the Bible into the Gothic language.

Below is Uppsala Cathedral, which contains the tomb of King Gustav Vasa. The two spires are 400 feet tall.

The photo above was taken from Uppsala Castle. Not a very impressive photo of the castle huh? That's because HH took it and he wanted a photo of whatever that thing is on the left, instead of the rest of the castle. Aren't you glad I wrested my camera back?

We caught a glimpse of a really nice garden too but we were short on time. After visiting the castle, we followed signs toward the cathedral, thinking that'd get us closer to the center of town.

Instead, we stumbled upon a park with even more rune stones. While rune stones were mostly intended as memorials to the deceased, this particular stone was created by a "clever" man who erected it for himself. Emphasis on the quotes since that's what I remembered was written on the plaque.

This rune stone had grammatical errors. Ha! As if I could read runic script to even know that. :P

Phew! That was the last rune stone.

Here's a closer view of the cathedral. We couldn't go inside for some reason that day.

So then we walked along the river. It started to rain so we ducked into a store to do some grocery shopping. When we went outside again, we were greeted by this rainbow.