After an excessive trip from Tromsø which saw me flying from Tromso to Bodø, then taking the night train to Trondheim, and one hour later taking another seven hour train to Oslo, sleeping the night there, getting up at 5:30am and flying to Stockholm, then taking a two and a half hour train, I arrived in Borlänge.
Borlänge is a small town of not very many people, but it is the home of my childhood au pair, Marie. I figured, and mum said I had, to visit Marie while I was in Sweden. It had been fourteen years since I had last seen her, and meeting her on the platform was interesting, she didn’t look anything like how she had all those years ago. It actaully turns out that how I remember her is the time that she had a perm! Anyway, irrellevant as that is, we, her and I and her two daughters (seven and nine) set off from the train station soon after I arrived.
Marie had decided to take me to a little river side cafe which, when we turned up, was full of Swedish bikers! They soon left and we sat down, had a coffee and talked for a while.
Riverside Cafe
She then suggested that we take a walk. And off we went. Along the road and towards the local open-air museum which contained a number of historic houses and some sort of Swedish style flag pole which is danced around during mid-summer.
Open-Air Museum
The site was set river side and the autumn coulours were amazing. Red and golden trees everywhere, with evergreens interspersed between. Amazing.
Old Rowboats and a River
After this, we took a look at the oldest church in the town (I think it may have been from the 1300s!), and its amazing bell tower.
Autumn Bell Tower
Next we visited a spring which is well-known in these parts. It’s a place where people go to have BBQs in the summer, children run around on school trips spotting birds at 4am, and in the winter they may even ice skate here.
Natural Spring Water
While we were at the spring, we took a short walk in the surrounding forest, complete with bird houses and beautiful autumn trees.
Grumpy? Walkin' the walk!
That night we had some delicous tacos made by Marie and sat around talking for hours. She even showed me her photo albums from her trips to New Zealand. The photos brought back many memories, especially of her with the crazy perm she’d got! She told me all sorts of stories about her time in New Zealand. It turns out that she has seen much more o the country that I have, and that was fourteen years ago! Later that night her husband came home and I ended up looking at another bunch of photos of his trip to Nepal and India.
The following day, both Marie and her husband had the day off so they could show me around. The first outing we made was into the Swedish forest to see the cave which Per Gynt, the fabled huntsman, hid inside. (He is also the subject of a play by Norweigian playwrite Henrik Ibsen.) The walk was beautiful, the forest was amazing with its autumn colours in full flourish.
Autumn Forest
After walking for a kilometer or two we got to the cave which was much smaller than I had thought it would be. Regardless of that, I decided to get inside it.
Inside Per Gynt's cave
After this we wandered into the forest a little further and ended up at Per Gynt’s gallows and also in a position for an amazign view over the local forest.
View from the Gallows
Later on we headed off to pick up Marie’s daughters, Gabriella and Rebecka from school. They finish at 1:30pm at their school so had time to make an excursion with us in the afternoon. We headed to the next town, Falun, 15km away, to take a tour through was what Europe’s largest Copper mine.
Falun Coppermine
We joined a tour which was to show us the mine and go through the history. It turns out the the mine had been running for close to 900 years when it was closed in 1992. It has been set up as a place to made the common Swedish red paint and also for touring. The tour started at the top (the picture above) and then decended into the mine.
Decending the mine
For around 45 minutes we toured through the mine, seeing the 250m mine shaft, the old equipment which was used inside, we were told ancient stories about the ghosts of the mine, and at one stage all the lights were turned off. This was the darkest place I have ever been, there was absolutely no light, it was impossible to even adjust to the darkness.
That night was my last in Borlänge. The following day I headed back on the train to Stockholm.
Tags: au pair, autumn, cave, copper, copper mine, forest, hiking, Peer Gynt, river, small town, spring
