Discovering the World Sans Valise: Uppsala - Oldest university in Scandinavia!

Although busy traveling, we still take the time to inform ourselves on what is happening around the world. Today in the New York Times (available to us thanks to our online subscription), we read news about the interesting results of the recent elections in South Africa, the possible consequences if the old japanese emperor steps down, and of course more news about Clinton and Trump competitive race with an interesting question being asked: who is lying the most....Clinton or Trump? I wish I could write as well as colonist Nicholas Kristof: " If Clinton declares that she didn't chop down a cherry tree, that might mean that she actually used a chain saw to cut it down. Or that she ordered an aid to chop it down. As for Trump, he will insist:"I absolutly did not shop down that cherry tree", even as he clutches the ax with which he chopped it down moments earlier on Facebook Live".

We had interest in visiting Uppsala, reknowned for its great university founded in 1477, the oldest university in Scandinavia. Below is the main building under renovation with a statue of Erik Gustav Geijer (1783-18470), a swedish writer, historian and poet who studied at Uppsala University.

Anders Celcius (1701-1744) who invented the Celcius scale, was a professor of Astronomy at Uppsala University. Two famous Nobel prize winners also studied or taught at Uppsala University, namely Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961) who was a diplomat and economist, UN Secretary General, one of four people awarded posthumous Nobel Prize, as well as Theodor Sveldberg (1884-1971) who received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1926 for his invention of the ultracentrifuge.

Uppsala is only a 40 minute train ride from Stockholm, This small city is small, beautiful, and lively. Everyone seems to travel by bike. We had a chance to visit the cathedral, the castle, the botanical gardens, walk through the street and eat good food. What more could we have hoped for?

The train station