. . . well, there’s one picture from Poland: the Last Meal. Malgorzata and Andrzej’s friend Monika, a gourmet cook (and student of linguistics and translation) met me in Warsaw before taking me to the airport hotel, and we went to a lovely restaurant for lunch. I had a delicious breast of duck (rare, as it SHOULD BE) with a berry/wine reduction, berries, and mashed potatoes. The presentation was lovely:
Then on to Uppsala University, the oldest university in all of Scandinavia (founded 1477). It has, I was told, about 45,000 students and is one of the best schools in Europe, especially for biology. In fact, I can’t think of another university in Europe with as large and diverse a group of researchers on evolution and ecology as Uppsala. And, lucky for me, many of them are working on speciation, so I had some lively chats with professors, postdocs, and grad students.
Many of the old buildings still remain in the old town of Uppsala, near the cathedral. This is University Hall, described on its page as “university main building”, “built in the 1880s and today. . . used for lectures, conferences, concerts and academic festivities.”
This old 17th-century building below is crowned by the second oldest “anatomical theater” in Europe (Padua is the oldest, from 1594, and I’ve visited that one). These theaters were used or dissection and occasional operations, and many remain in original condition. The plan is the same in most old schools in Europe: a circular space with a central table where the dissections/operations were performed, surrounded by rising tiers of seats for students.
Behind the building you can see the Cathedral, where Linnaeus is buried. It was closed the day I walked around, but I saw his tombstore in the cathedral floor on a previous visit to Uppsala.
Go peruse the page on these theaters in Atlas Obscura to see their historical importance (and beauty). The two pictures below the building, showing the interior of Uppsala’s theater, are from the AO page (I didn’t see it myself).
The Atlas Obscura describes the Uppsala theater like this:
Located in what’s now the Gustavianum Museum in Uppsala, Sweden, is the world’s second oldest operating theater. It was constructed in the mid-17th century as part of Uppsala University. Its muted-hued viewing tiers descend down to an octagon operating area.
Operations would of course have been performed without anesthetic, making their viewing a grueling experience:
Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778; also called Carl Linné) is of course famous as the Swedish naturalist/biologist who introduced the binomial system of animal and plant classification. With the publication of Systema Naturae (1735), he founded the modern science of taxonomy. He was a student at Uppsala and later returned to become a professor. He had a home in town (photo below) and one in the country where he spent his summers. We ate dinner one night right across the street from town house, which had extensive gardens (HUGE!) where he grew his plants for instructional purposes. Linnaeus later became rector of Uppsala University, and delighted in teaching students. I was told the story below by my host, and, sure enough, the Telegraph verified it:
As a champion of nature as popular entertainment, Linnaeus stood father to a pastime of which his country has never tired. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, he used to escort 200 volunteers on expeditions to record the plants and animals around 18th-century Uppsala.
They took music and picnics; they returned with flowers in their hair, waking the citizenry with drums and trumpets. These were triumphal marches; nature had yielded up more of her secrets.
What larks; what lust for learning; what a legacy for an old studentska of a city, still fresh and green of aspect but with a feisty intellectual heart.
Imagine coming back from a field expedition with drums beating and trumpets blaring! Now that’s a love of nature!
Uppsala, even the central part, contains lovely private homes in sylvan settings. Here are two I photographed:
For lunch before my talk, I ate with Jochen Wolf’s group: about 12 students and postdocs from about 10 different countries (EU fellowships allow an amazing and enriching diversity of students: at my table there were students from Colombia, Finland, Germany, England, and Taiwan). We ate at a fancy hotel dining room (you can’t fault the Swedes for their hospitality!), beginning with the main course: a classic Swedish dish of barely-warmed salmon in a mustard and dill sauce with boiled potatoes and vegetables. On the buffet there were about seven different kinds of salads and delicious Swedish bread:
Reader Laura Parducci from the Department of Ecology and Genetics, who works on plant evolution, sent this photo, the only one in existence of my talk in Uppsala. You can see the people lining the walls; I was gratified that the room was filled to overflowing (especially in a group as renowned as that in Uppsala). Laura’s caption:
I send you a nice photo of you (with no cats unfortunately) taken during your recent talk in Uppsala.
They put me up at the Academihotellet, just a stone’s throw from the Cathedral. It was a simple but homey place, and excelled in its breakfasts (there was also a free cappuccino/latte/espresso machine going all day, with cookies). Breakfast consisted of a variety of cold meats and cheeses, freshly baked bread (still warm!), hard- and soft-boiled eggs, juices, yogurt, and Swedish pancakes with a variety of toppings. The hard-core Swedish stuff:
And the toppings for Swedish pancakes and/or yogurt: fresh lingonberries and blackcurrents, nuts, raisins, preserves, Nutella, fresh fruit, honey, and all manner of stuff. I opted every day for a soft-boiled egg and Swedish pancakes with lingonberries: another classic dish.
What a fine breakfast! (I washed it down with two cappuccinos.)
I give my thanks to the good folk of Uppsala University for inviting me to give the Svedberg Lecture, and especially to my genial host, Jochen Wolf, for making all the onerous arrangements and taking time to escort me around.
Uppsala is my favorite city in the world. If you have the chance, try cloudberries and reindeer steak. There’s a little restaurant in the old train station, if I recall correctly, that does this dish perfectly.
Great… now I’m going to be thinking about Swedish breakfast all day.
Cloudberries are great, but very seasonal. And they contain a very hard pit — real toothbreakers.
Even better: smoked reindeer!
Now you are all making me hungry!! The only thing better than game meat is smoked game meat!!
How impressive the pedigree of Uppsala University! How beautiful the city in autumn. And what a downright delightful anecdote about Linnaeus!
Exactly! (or +1 if you rather)
A nice looking town and a charming campus. I really need to visit Europe at some point. It will probably only take me about another 189 years to pay off my student loan enough to be able to go.
Sweden, I’ll see you in 2204!
My wife is Swedish. She has told me how as a little girl, she had a press for leaves and flowers. The children often went out in the woods, doing what they called botanizing. They learned all the botanic names of fowers in Latin.
Linné, as they call him, is a real national hero. Funny, I don’t know that he even owned a gun. What kind of national hero is that? 😉
That is a darling snippet of a story, joneall.
Would that all tribes had only such genre of national heroes ?! AND of wee kiddos’ learning opportunities !
Query for you / Spouse: why the double letter p in Uppsala ? Is this a Swedish linguistic deal with hard – and / or regular – sounding consonants ? Or ? Or just is – and of no special twist at all ?
Blue
Yes, it is a modern form of the old Upsala, which now would be said with a more open -u- and a softer -p-. See here for that (except the difference in pronunciation): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uppsala
Now there were many “up” – either “up stream” or “higher up” – sala in the Viking era all the way out to Iceland. “Sala” was a building with one room (“sal”), so could be anything from a temporary lodging over simple houses to some form of symbolic building. [ https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svenska_ortnamnsefterled#-sala ]
But it seems the old Norse “Uppsalir” can be traced to the 10th century in some Norse sagas. The cult locale East Aros (since Västerås was West Aros) – “aros” from river outlet at the then lake connection to the coast where Stockholm now lies – was abandoned when the catholic church chose Uppsala as primary Swedish location. It is believed the name started out as a reference to a nearby farm house – “Sala” (“Salir”?). [ http://runeberg.org/svetym/1154.html ]
I am glad Jerry enjoyed my city!
Some of the food reminds me of what I had in Aarhus, which I guess is not so surprising. I imagine that the cheeses are different, given what Danes do with the those!
This post strikes me as a great example of how the world could be without religion. The old buildings are beautiful and, unless I’m mistaken, not associated with any church. The national hero was a scientist. The tradition for exploring life in the surrounding countryside is a demonstration of spiritual experiences resulting from immersion in the material world.
Don’t forget the food!
More seriously, the range of cultures represented in Jochen Wolf’s group. All gathered to learn and investigate nature and, I am sure, have some good times as well.
Mmmmm what yummy food pictures!
@Jac: you certainly know how to spend your time! What a lovely set of experiences.
re: the first photo
the last meal? Are you certain you don’t mean The Last Supper? (joking!)
Thanks for sharing the great photos!
Whenever Norwegian smoked salmon is on offer, I pretty much eat nothing else …
I had a young philosophy prof who was born in the U.S. but ancestors from Sweden. He was single and was determined to marry a Swedish girl – I think because he found American women off-putting. He returned in the Fall semester having found a Swedish woman who he proudly said had been a secretary. I can just imagine him visiting some office at the university there and asking the first secretary he met if she wouldn’t like to come to America. He was a positivist.
I love reading this stuff. It’s a window into a world I maybe could have entered if I hadn’t been persuaded that biology was predominantly maths and chemistry…
Boy, it’s all in the framing, isn’t it? I got into it because it sounded like it was all about sex. 😀
Well, that and having always been a curious naturalist, and a few other reasons…
Love the operating theater ( and the noms).
Nothing like piped mashed potatoes to showcase luscious, saucy rivulets.
Those two lovely homes could be in Minnesota. 🙂
That reminds me, when I was at MTU in the upper peninsula of Michigan, we had what was called pasty. I consisted of hamburger, potato, turnip, wrapped in a crust and baked. This was for lunch, and it lasted through the rest of the day with some calories left over. My wife’s professor was known as the Fat Finn for obvious reasons.
Love pasties! Had to learn how to pronounce them right on first moving here, though…
I love so much Uppsala city and I hope to visited it one day
Thanks for sharing the great photos!