GlimmingeHus
Trip Start
May 27, 2008
1
8
31
Trip End
Aug 27, 2008
Hammenhög,
Sweden
Sunday, June 15, 2008
We arrived when they opened at 10am and purchased some tickets for 60kr ($10) and entered the grounds
Glimmingehus
. The castle is surrounded by a moat and is an imposing site. The architecture was fairly simple, but the structure itself is a feat of Swedish engineering with almost the whole building made from heavy stone. The lower part of the castle walls are almost 3m thick while the upper parts around 2m thick. It is Solid up and down built to defend King and country. As we crossed the bridge I looked down into the moat to look for anything deadly, just because I always thought castles would have crazy animals in their moats to add an extra layer of protections, but not alligators or man eating fish, just two big fish of unknown species floated around. I am sure the moat was effective nonetheless back in the 17hundreds. In the courtyard little stands were setup with various wares. My favorite booths was where they had food of course and I tried this nice turkey beef sausage with dried garlic on the coating and it was quite savory. I would have bought it had it not been around 20 dollars. After perusing the stalls we walked into the castle fortress and into the darkness. There is no electricity in Glimmingehus and only simple candles were setup in in the entry ways. Also the windows were very sparse and very small, due to defensive purposes. So upon entry there was a stark difference in lighting. I almost took a tumble down the stairs the first few steps. The ceiling hung low and the steps on the stairs were huge and uneven at times
Moat
. We first entered the basement area which contained the kitchen and some storage area. A stone hewn well lined the floor of the kitchen and was the source of water for the building. Also it had a fairly large oven area for cooking. On the second floor we came to various other rooms and some with little slits for windows and random rooms with dead ends. Many defensive arrangements of the era, such as parapets, false doors and dead-end corridors, 'murder-holes' for pouring boiling pitch over the attackers, moats, draw bridges and various other forms of death traps to surprise trespassers. It was crazy to walk around and just go nowhere. The higher floors had more intricate carvings and also the stone continued upwards. The top floor was closed off and was composed on mostly wood flooring, which was sort of freaky to walk on with the wood being just over 500 years old. You could see the floor below you in the tiny cracks between the beams.
It is said that Glimmingehus is haunted, but going to the castle so early in the day, I didn't feel or sense any weary spirits inhabiting the old castle. But seeing where all these nobleman's lived and fought so long ago, history still lives in their walls and their foundations built to withstand the test of time.
