Västerås Things to Do

This is the skyline of Västerås over lake Mälaren. You have to click on the picture to see it a little bit better I am afraid. The picture was taken from too far away to have a good view over the skyline.
The location of Västerås is great, with the river Svartån flowing through its city centre, and situated right at the shore of lake Mälaren. Lake Mälaren is a beautiful lake with many islands, and it is no wonder that Västerås has a busy harbour with lots of recreational boats. I am not so sure that the skyline of the city is so great though, hahaha, too many big modern and industrial buildings.

After this short introduction of Västerås, let's go into town and have a look around. Let me start with this statue called 'The ASEA-strömmen' (ASEA-current) which shows a characteristic Västerås view. You can see the workers cycling home from ABB (the former ASEA). The details in the statue are great, it looks so realistic, even the lunchbox of the workers isn't missing :-) The statue is located on the main square of Västerås (Stora Torget) and has been here since 1989. I really loved this sculpture, maybe because it reminded me a lot of my own trips on the bicycle, to and from work and also from school.
The sculpture was made by B.G. Broström. A fun detail is that he even included his own father among the bicyclists.

This is a picture of the Town Hall of Västerås. The Town Hall is rather new; they started building it in 1953. The tower isn't what I call beautiful, but clearly present as it is 65 meters high. The nice part of the tower is the carillon, which is the biggest carillon of Sweden. You can hear the carillon every day, I think around noon.

This statue takes a prominent place at the city hall. You have to look up though, otherwise you will miss seeing it, as it is high up in the sky. But if you look up, you can't miss seeing this gold coloured bull glittering in the sky. This statue 'The Bull' is from 1963 by Gunnar Runefelt. In popular speech it is also called 'den gyllene kalven' (the golden calf).

Across from the Town Hall you can see this fountain. Hahaha, maybe it is not really worth mentioning, but it gives you a bit of a feel what the city looks like :-)
The fountain is just before the turbine house. The power from this turbine house was actually the start of the ASEA company (1891), later the ABB, one of Sweden's biggest companies.

Next to the Town Hall you can find the Västerås museum of art (Västerås Konstmuseum). The museum is located in the old court house of 1860. The museum exhibitions mainly cover contemporary Swedish and Nordic art. I haven't been into the museum myself, so I can't tell you that much more about the collection.

You can find a lot of information (all in Swedish) about the museum on the website mentioned below.

Not far from the city centre is a park called Djäkneberget. Djäkneberget is a hill and lays just a couple of hundred meters to the west of the cathedral and the town square. In former times the park was used as a meeting point by the students ("Djäkne" is an old word for student) and that is how this park came to be.
The park is really nice and you have a nice view over parts of Västerås from here. But thing I liked most about the park are these boulders with inscriptions. This boulder is in memory of Sam Lidman who is responsible for more than 500 of these inscriptions in the park. It’s great to read the various inscriptions on the boulders and think about what they mean. You need a Swedish guide though, hahaha, as most of the inscriptions are in Swedish. Luckily I had someone with me to translate it all for me :-)
Some of the boulders just contain a name of a historic person, but other inscriptions are longer and have a meaning. One example of the inscriptions is : "Var heller frij än annars träl - ämedan du kant tik röra." Which means: "Prefer to be free and not a slave - while you still can move." But there are many many more (over 500) and all food for thought.

IIt's fun to walk around in Kyrkbacken and just wander around through the winding streets of this old part of town. Kyrkbacken is not far from the city centre, it is just behind the cathedral, so it's not hard to find. Although the houses are old, it's not a museum; it still is a 'living' part of the city. But it does give a good impression of what life in town looked like a couple of centuries ago. The houses are small and low, the plank fences, the narrow streets, and the greenery gives you an idea how a medieval Swedish city must have looked like. All the old the houses have signs on them telling their history, and this makes it easier to imagine what life in those days must have been like.
Nowadays it is the working area of quite a few artistic craftsmen and it is great to have a look around in the little stores with their handicraft.