Mid-October, a Saturday, an hour north of Stockholm by train. I stepped off at Uppsala with no tour booked, no plan, and about four hours to spend in Sweden's fourth-largest city.
Fourth-largest sounds big, and Uppsala does hold more than 172,000 people. On foot, it never feels that way.
I walked every major sight, ate a proper lunch, and still fit in the bus trip out to Gamla Uppsala — all in those four hours. If you're basing yourself in the capital, like I did on my first day in Stockholm, it's an easy day trip.
Sweden's Oldest University Town
The city's anchor is Uppsala University, the oldest university in Scandinavia — it's been teaching since 1477. Anders Celsius worked here, and yes, that's where the Celsius scale comes from.
I wandered the campus and ducked into the university library's reading room, the quietest room I've ever stood in. If reading is your idea of a good time, it's heaven.
Geography check: Scandinavia is Sweden, Norway, and Denmark — Finland and Iceland are Nordic, not Scandinavian. More of those live in my quick facts about Sweden.
Pictures of Uppsala's City Center
I skipped the guided tours and let the streets decide. The Fyris river cuts straight through the middle of town, and most of what's worth seeing sits within a few blocks of it.
Domtrappkällaren, above, is a restaurant set in a medieval cellar beside the cathedral steps. It's the kind of place you book before you board the train.
Uppsala Castle
Gustav Vasa began the castle in the 1540s, planted on the hill with the best view in town. The story goes he aimed its cannons straight at the cathedral — a blunt reminder to the archbishop of who ran Sweden.
Uppsala Cathedral
The cathedral is the largest church in the Nordic countries, and Swedish kings were crowned under its towers for centuries. Gustav Vasa is entombed inside, and so is Carl Linnaeus, the Uppsala botanist who named half the living world.
Uppsala Botanical Gardens
Below the castle hill sit the university's botanical gardens, quiet even on a Saturday afternoon. They make an easy breather between the big sights.
Gamla Uppsala – the Mounds
A city bus took me the short hop north to Gamla Uppsala — gamla is Swedish for "old." This is where the city began, and where three great burial mounds rise out of an open field.
Archaeologists credit Iron Age kings rather than gods, but in the October wind the old story feels easier to believe. Beside them sits the flat-topped Thing Mound, where Swedes once gathered for their assemblies.
The rest of the site is open field and red-painted farm buildings, the Sweden you see on postcards. When the wind won, I ducked into the restaurant by the entrance to warm up before the bus back.
Video of Uppsala, Sweden
Prefer to see it move? This short tour covers the same ground.
Catch a morning train from Stockholm Central and you'll be back in the capital by dinner.