Gamla Stan – København Eventyr

Old Town

We live in the Old Town section of Winston-Salem. It is vastly younger than Gamla Stan in Stockholm, by centuries. Ten minutes to check-in and stow our belongings and we were back on the T headed to meet a tour guide.

He gave us too many names to choose from. They all began with Z. We called him Zed.

Gustav Aldophus, also known as Gustav II, is credited with making Sweden a major European Power. His reign started at the age of 16 upon his father’s death. He was killed 21 years later at the Battle of Lützen in Germany.

We went to ‘The Great Church’, Stockholms domkyrka or Storkyrkan (Stockholm Cathedral) and Sankt Nikolai kyrka (Church of Saint Nicholas).
It is the oldest church in Stockholm.

This is a copy of the earliest painting known of Stockholm. It hangs in the Cathedral

Stock means logs and Holm means island. Stockholm was built by Vikings on an archipelago, surrounded by wood pilings strategically placed to protect from invasions. The Swedes created a trade route where they collected money to let ships pass. This is how they built wealth.

St. George and the Dragon is an ancient legend about a knight who saved a princess from being sacrificed to a dragon. The impressive thing for me is that this statue is made of wood and antlers.

Nearby at the palace we watched the changing of Högvakten (Royal Guard).

Christina was the only child of Gustav Aldophus and became queen-elect at 6 years old. Gustav Aldophus insisted that she be educated as a prince. She became queen when he died at the battle in Germany. She ruled for 10 years and then abdicated to her cousin. She did not want to marry and she secretly converted to Catholicism. Sweden is a Protestant nation so this was a big deal.

Cobble stone streets held shops, business and cafes.

Zed included the “deets” of the royal family. The last full blooded Swedish King and his queen could not reproduce so they adopted a 50 year old Frenchman from Napoleon’s Army. Charles XIV John became king in 1818.

That was the beginning of the House of Bernadotte which has been in place since. It is also Swedish law that the oldest heir become the next Regis regardless of gender. Princess Victoria will succeed her father.

Zed added a bonus stop down a dead end street to see Stockholm’s smallest statue at only 15 cm high. The custom is to rub the boy’s head. Zed advised against it as neighborhood animals are known to relieve themselves here.

“Little boy looking at the moon”
by Swedish artist Liss Eriksson (1919 – 2000)

We were led around a series of streets in Gamla Stan and asked to make observations of the buildings we passed. In Sweden property owners are taxed for windows. To avoid the tax they create fake windows.

Note the top row of windows on the yellow building to the left. They are an illusion.

None of us noticed the fake windows. We did not look up. We were busy looking down so as not to trip on the stones of the street. They also use pea gravel instead of rock salt.

Climate change is causing the water surrounding Stockholm to recede which is challenging to sustainable land use. As the rock of the archipelago rises, buildings are cracking and leaning toward one another. They are not sure how to deal with this. Helps one understand Greta Thornberg’s vehemence.

The final stop on this tour was to learn about the Swedish Blodbad or blood bath that lies at the heart of Danish-Swedish relations. Today Danes and Swedes rib one another with good humor. But back in the day (1520), after Danish Christian II was coronated as King of Sweden, Swedish Nobles were invited to a meeting. They were imprisoned. Over the next three days over 80 of them were executed in this square and the well filled with their blood.

On a happier note, the color in the square today is provided by the paint color of the buildings there. The red is prominent throughout Sweden as a by- product of the copper ore they mine. The metal shapes (brackets) on all the buildings are the ends of structural rods holding the buildings together.