Thursday, August 22, 2013

Kalmar Trip









I took a road trip today to see the boys play in Oskarshamn. On the way, I took a detour and stopped at the Kalmar Castle due to the great reviews it had from people- true to form, it lived up to my expectations! Firstly, my drive started off with a pretty cool view of a thunderstorm. I love when you can see the line of the storm coming and ending! One thing I discovered I don’t love so much is Swedish drivers…more on that for another post ;)
I decided to walk around by myself, and take the guided tour another day when Nick can join me- as he is a history nerd, I know he will appreciate me waiting! However, I was able to gleam a lot of information on my solo tour. The castle has a history that goes back over 800 years, but the current configuration was established in the 16th century to create a Renaissance castle. One of the coolest things to me was inside the castle and the plaster and decoration painting. You can see this a little bit in the second picture. The ground floor has the largest blocks, the middle floor a combination of medium and small-sized blocks, and finally, the top floor (supposed to be the grandest floor) only having medium sized blocks. Of course, a lot of this plaster and decorative painting has worn away- but when you look closely you can see!
The next picture that was coolest to me was seeing the cannon balls still lodged in the walls of the castle. Being a castle, of course they had cannons to protect themselves, and at times were attacked. It is thought that the cannon balls still lodged in this wall are from the summer of 1611, when the Kalmar War was fought. It was very impressive to learn that only 6 to 8 shots could be fired from a cannon in an hour, because of the process to cool the cannons down!
The rose I have pictured is ‘Kalmar slott’, a hybrid, that is an old-fashioned Danish rose specially cultivated for Kalmar Castle! The roses are apricot-coloured, and very pretty. I thought it was fairly unique the castle had a rose cultivated just for it!
Lastly, while I was on my way to snap a couple of cool pics of the castle- along with the necessary selfie! I noticed a couple that was apparently quite ‘inspired’ by the castle. A funny observation to share!
Overall, the trip to the castle was great! These are just a few of my highlights from my tour- more to come when I bring my history nerd along with to check out the guided tour! And of course, the day was made perfect when KHK won the game 6-3, and Nick getting 1 goal 1 assist and 2 huge hits :)

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