It is a warm but slightly cloudy morning with the promise of good weather later, so we have decided to haul out the bikes and ride over to the ruins of Borgholm Castle, which lies a couple of kilometres from the harbour. We can see the castle clearly from where we are, so it should not be too hard to find the way there.

The road south of town is a beautiful leafy street and this leads to a fork in the road that was thankfully signposted (not always the case in Sweden, believe me). Both roads led to the castle, one via the paved coastal road and the other was a pedestrian pathway through a wooded area. We thought we'd take the forest path there and return via the coast when we were finished. This area is known as Slottsskogen (The Castle Forest) and was cool, green and lush in the morning light. The trees, mostly oak, beech, ash etc provided a shaded canopy that hid the castle from view. This was not always the case, with most of this area being chopped back so that the sentries in the castle could see potential enemies from far away. Today it was peaceful and full of the twittering of birds and scurrying squirrels. We rode part of the way and walked some of it, especially when the white fluffy one wanted to jump down and sniff around.



The castle is enormous and probably one of the best known buildings in Sweden. It is in a magnificent location, as it sits on its high limestone cliff, visible for many miles in every direction. It is a striking landmark for anyone sailing off the coast and from the precipice of the castle you can see the lowlands stretching out below you to the north, south and east with the shimmering blue waters of Kalmarsund to the west. Borgholm Castle is slap-bang in the middle of it all, rising so dramatically above a completely flat plain that you get dizzy just looking over the castle walls at the drop below.

Inside the ruins you get a good picture of the grandeur of the place and we marvelled at it's sheer dimensions and the aura of strength and power it exuded. The area pictured below was just inside the entrance area in a courtyard where the horses were secured. The people are dwarfed by the surrounding three stories of stone walls. It is really impressive today and I can only imagine how awed the peasants were by this place.



In many respects, Borgholm reminded me of the great Scottish fortress strongholds, especially Stirling Castle which I visited several years ago. That castle, also perched on a high, rocky cliff with a commanding view had the same rugged strength, which was quite a contrast to the stately, gentle beauty of the English castles that I'd visited on the same trip with their pretty gardens and rolling lawns. Borgholm is not a pretty castle, but speaks instead of power and domination and gives us a glimpse of some of its violent history.



Borgholm was certainly one of the most strategically important and formidable strongholds in Swedish history. There has been some form of castle here since the Middle Ages and from that time until the late eighteenth century it was the scene of battles, sieges, destruction and reconstruction. At times the castle (and the country) were held by Germans, Danes and finally the Swedes with the main court being held here until a change in the political winds decreed that the power base moved northwards to Stockholm.



The castle has undergone many, many extensions since it was first constructed in the 1100's. The castle museum displayed models of three of these rebuildings. The first castle was erected within a ring-wall in the twelfth century and was quite simple in form and looked very much like a stronghold.

Between 1572 and 1592, King Johan III decided to transform the old fortress into a magnificent renaissance style castle. I really loved this design with the beautiful decorated round towers at each corner of the rectangular building, plus a further tower on each of the four walls. The state apartments were situated facing west with wonderful a vista across the water. It was so elegant and tasteful and looked like a fantasy land palace.



However, during the bloody Kalmar War of 1611-1613, the castle was severely damaged, so the king of the day, Karl X Gustaf commissioned an architect to transform it instead into a restrained classic baroque style fortress. I have to say that this was the least attractive of the three rebuildings, but there was no doubt that it sent a message of strength, power and domination to anyone who was thinking of laying siege to it.



These plans were only partly carried out and continued under subsequent kings, but finally was discontinued in the mid eighteenth century, after which the castle fell into a rapid rate of decay. I read in the literature at the museum that there had been a plan to turn the castle into a post office! I cracked up laughing at that one. Apart from the fact that it was a tad large to handle mail for a tiny island, it was also a steep two kilometre climb up to the castle, so who could be bothered collecting the mail. I said to Lars-Göran that it was the most harebrained scheme I'd ever heard and he shook his head and said "Sadly, I recognise my country."



The stand-off and neglect continued until October 14th 1806 when a fire broke out in some outer buildings that were being used as a clothing factory. There were strong north easterly winds blowing at the time and the fire quickly spread, reducing the castle to a shell.

And speaking of laughing, I also cracked up when I read this sign in English:



At first when I saw The Blasted Church, I was hoping for some juicy scandal involving separation of powers between chuch and state. I mean it sounds exactly the sort of thing that the Tudor English king Henry VIII would have screamed at Thomas More when he was told that he could not divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn instead. Hmm, perhaps he wouldn't have been quite so polite about it, but you get my drift.

However, a quick glance at the Swedish text told me that they had made a rather literal translation of the heading into English. The text talks about a church built in the village at the foot of the castle that had been blown up by the Swedes so that invading Danish forces could not use it as shelter. While the word sprängda certainly could be translated as blasted (as in blown up), you would not translate Den Sprängda Kyrkan as "The Blasted Church" unless your intention was to amuse visiting Australians. For any Swedes reading this who are a little confused, when I read "The Blasted Church", I immediately translated it as Den Jäkla Kyrkan - which is not really the same thing at all....



We spent over three hours here walking over every square inch of the place and viewing it from all angles. Even from above, the view down to the central courtyard was awe inspiring.



It is a building that doesn't leave you unmoved. Its sheer size is overwhelming and its location is fascinating. Really, it has an imposing atmosphere, which leaves an unforgettable impression.



From high in the tower we looked down to the town of Borgholm itself and the harbour in the distance, with Fiona quietly bobbing up and down in the water. As you can see, the sunshine and blue skies have returned and in the early afternoon we decide to take the coastal road back to the harbour.



Tomorrow we are going to visit the other royal residence here at Solliden. But first we need to rest our weary legs and crack open a bottle of red wine.