Castle Museum and Museum Shop.
In the Museum there is a permanent display of the history of the Castle, moulded with models, archaeological finds and interesting texts and illustrations. There is even room for temporary exhibitions here.
The Museum Shop, where you can buy presents, toys or souvenirs, is open from Midsummer to mid-August.

Situated in:

The West Wing

The West Wing was built in the 1500s as state and banqueting apartments for King Johan III and Katarina Jagellonica. Nicodemus Tessin the Elder in the middle of the 1600s later on rebuilt the wing.  The ground floor is still in possession of its magnificent vaulted ceilings, while those on the upper floors collapsed during the 18th and 19th centuries. The entire West Wing has had the flooring changed with new flagstones; special window glasses put in and complementary wiring done during the 1990s to cover the requirements of today for exhibition and rental purposes.

Here in the Maiden Tower, with its vaulted ceiling, is one of the stateliest rooms of the Castle. It also holds the most important well of the building.

The Maiden Well belonged to the medieval stronghold and is as such older than the present tower. As a vital part of a defensive fortification the well must be safely located, so it will likely have had a superstructure like a tower from the very beginning. The well was cut or fire-cracked straight down into the limestone bedrock to a depth of 54 meters (= 160 feet). The well and the tower were named after a legend about a young maid of a broken heart who had drowned herself in the well. Her dead body later on rose to the surface in a well on the Island of “Blå Jungfrun”, way out in Kalmar Sound. According to folklore the island and the castle well must be connected with a subterranean passage.

See the film about the Maiden Tower

The Maiden  Tower is situated in:

The West Wing

The West Wing was built in the 1500s as state and banqueting apartments for King Johan III and Katarina Jagellonica. Nicodemus Tessin the Elder in the middle of the 1600s later on rebuilt the wing. The ground floor is still in possession of its magnificent vaulted ceilings, while those on the upper floors collapsed during the 18th and 19th centuries. The entire West Wing has had the flooring changed with new flagstones; special window glasses put in and complementary wiring done during the 1990s to cover the requirements of today for exhibition and rental purposes.

This is the main entrance to the Castle. The Gateway (room 102) is joined of mighty blocks of limestone that were dressed to represent huge, cut diamonds, a design called diamond rustic that King Johan III had derived directly from the Italian Renaissance.

Part of the unfinished palace. While the transformation was in progress, from the Swedish Renaissance of the 16th century into the Baroque of the 17th century, in 1709 the means were irretrievably used up. At that time the East Wing stood there with a temporary roof, but without partition walls, floors, and staircases or glazed windows.

It looks the same here today as it did when the building work ceased in 1709. The walls never reached their full height; no stairs, floors, windows or doors were installed. From the South Wing, steps lead up to the bastion.