The moat
Free open gardens ringing the castle.
Kateryna Baiduzha — CC BY-SA 4.0 · L.G.foto — CC BY-SA 4.0 · mattias hill from Malmö, sweden — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Susanne Nilsson — CC BY-SA 3.0
Because Malmo and all of Scania were Danish territory until the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658, when they passed to Sweden after a lost war — and the castle was built to protect Danish interests on the strait. That also explains Scania's distinctive dialect, closer to Danish, and its architecture unlike the rest of Sweden.
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Malmohus is the oldest surviving Renaissance castle in the Nordic countries, built by the Danish king Christian III in the 1540s when all of Scania was Danish land. Its form is low and broad with round corner towers and an encircling moat — a military design meant to withstand artillery rather than to impress. Its history is strikingly turbulent: a royal castle, then a prison for nobles (the Earl of Bothwell, husband of Mary Queen of Scots, was held here for five years), then a grain store, then a barracks, then a public prison until 1914 — before becoming a museum. Today it is Malmo's city museum complex under a single ticket: history and art museums in the castle, a natural history museum with tanks and live animals (a small aquarium much liked by children), plus the neighbouring buildings. The gardens and moat around it are free and open, forming the finest green space in central Malmo.
Free open gardens ringing the castle.
Tanks and live animals children enjoy.
Malmohusvagen 6, 211 20 Malmo