Waldemar Januszczak Visits - Skokloster Castle

This is Skålkluster Castle, it's about an hour's drive north of Stockholm and this is one of the wackiest castles you'll ever visit. It's also a lost baroque masterpiece. Up here on the first floor there's this painted hall in which portraits of some of the nobles who came here hang above witty signs in all sorts of languages on all sorts of topics. Here's a good one, it's in French, it says friends are like melons, you have to try a lot of them before you find a good one. It's all up here in Latin it says not for me but for the people and that's actually the logo. There's even one in English here, shortcuts lead to the faithful friend though he abideth afar off. Skålkluster Castle was started in 1654 and took two decades or so to build. The man who built it was called Gustav Rangel, he was a Swedish soldier who fought in many battles across northern Europe and wherever he went and wherever he won he would come back to Skålkluster and bring some of his war booty with him. So there are things in here from all over Europe and beyond. They reckon there are around 50,000 objects crowded into Skålkluster Castle and getting around and seeing them all is a very interesting and a very exciting experience. This is the plushest room in the castle, the room of the kings and the thing to look for in here is the ceiling which is absolutely extraordinary. It was made by Hans Zauch, a German craftsman brought over here and a man who specialised in what I can only call a delightfully rustic style of ceiling decoration. This gorgeous chandelier here dropping out of the dragon's mouth is the oldest chandelier in Sweden and it might even be the oldest glass chandelier in the world. Look at the wallpaper in here, it's the best preserved baroque leather wallpaper in the world. Different wallpaper in every room and in this one the theme is paradise. While the floors downstairs are full of the state apartments, very luxurious beautiful baroque spaces, the higher you go up the house the wackier it all gets and you're never prepared for the things you encounter. I mean this for example is the most complete armoury still in existence from the baroque age. In amongst the guns there's a kayak and it's not just any old kayak, this is from Greenland and was made early in the 17th century. It's a baroque kayak used by the Eskimos at the time and made out of seal skin, still in perfect condition, still usable I suppose. A baroque Eskimo kayak, you won't see many of those in the world. So that's Skålkloster castle, it's a lost baroque gem, it's one of the wackiest castles ever built and it's somewhere you really should try and get to see.