In the south of Sweden, protected by the island of Öland, is located one of the best preserved Renaissance castles in Europe, Kalmar Slott that is located strategically on the banks of Kalmar Sund, one of the most important shipping lanes in the Baltic Sea.

Kalmar Castle towers regally from its own island and is only accessible from the mainland via a bridge. At the time of Gustav Vasa, Castle Kalmar was rebuilt and extended with a portal built of limestone, decorated with pillars and Sweden’s Imperial crest. An eight metre deep well was dug with a superstructure designed by Dominicus Pahr with one of the most beautiful fountains of the northern Renaissance.

On the ground floor there are three rooms which served as a women's prison in the nineteenth century and the benches upon which the women prisoners slept are still present.

On the walls there are paintings of coloured sandstone and quotations from the bible, on the north side, in Swedish and on the south side, in Latin. Although Kalmar Slott withstood twenty four sieges it still retains all the splendour of former times.