Carolinaparken, better known as Engelska parken (English Park) is ideal for taking your blanket, your picnic basket and a thick novel to read. Once you have settled down, you want to stay.
Carolinaparken is located behind the university library, Carolina Rediviva, and is one of Sweden’s first public parks, built at the beginning of the 1800s. Engelska parken is a natural oasis for Uppsala residents on hot summer days. As the sunlight glitters down through the foliage, the majestic larches and deciduous trees offer cooling shade.
What we now refer to as English parks began to be laid out in England in the 1700s, as a reaction to the more rigid baroque style. An English park was designed to look natural and to create an idealised landscape. The grass in Engelska parken is not cut during the summer, but allowed to grow tall and create a beautiful flowery meadow. Then in August the grass is mown using an old-fashioned mowing machine, pulled by heavy horses that work their way through the park at a leisurely pace.
If you prefer not to laze on a blanket, Engelska parken has plenty of good-sized picnic tables. And there is ample room to play frisbee, boule and other games in the extensive grassed areas. The park is part of Slottsstråket, a pathway in the area round Uppsala slott (Castle). To the west lies Uppsala University’s humanities campus, including art history, literary studies and theology.
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