Uppsala, Sweden

Uppsala sits 70 kilometers north of Stockholm and counts about 230,000 residents, making it Sweden's fourth-largest city. Uppsala University, founded in 1477, is the oldest in the Nordic countries and still shapes daily life in the city center. The 13th-century Uppsala Cathedral rises 118.7 meters, the tallest church in the Nordic region, and holds the burial site of the 18th-century biologist Carl Linnaeus. From a hill above the rooftops, the 16th-century Uppsala Castle overlooks gardens where a silver hoard was unearthed in 1558. Five kilometers north, Old Uppsala holds more than 300 burial mounds from the 5th and 6th centuries — and what lies beneath them still draws archaeologists today.