Week 8 – Sweden and the Midsummer Festival

Week 8 – Sweden and the Midsummer Festival

Long drive back to Stockholm. Completed biometrics (hand/face recognition) for Swedish visitor’s visa – nice to have friends to allow us to stay in Europe for longer than Schengen three months!

Can't be the correct depth below sea-level????

Roundabout IN tunnel - with lighted dome! WOW!!

... but Norway does small bridges with style!

Denmark may have a name for design....

Headed to Uppsala, finding runic stones and Viking trail.

On way to Gavle sidetracked to Falun to overlook Great Copper Mountain where mine operated for a millennium from C10. Met a teacher stripping saplings near open pit, she’s going to roast rocks with the kids as in old days to extract copper. Surrounding buildings painted in red oxide residue. 

Ate delicious Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and lingonberries for lunch - have been waiting to try this national dish. Turned off to Naznus to see factory where make Dalarna horses.
 

On to Mora, met three queues of caravans edging in to caravan park for the Midsummer Festival - when we finally got into reception had to take a ticket and wait to be called!! In this huge park of over 800 sites we were relieved to find the (very cold!) Boomers. 
 










Joined Orsa parade in traditional clothing - band of fiddles and accordions following real Dalarna horse with white socks and flowers plaited into hair.  Had a fabulous couple of days entertained by Maxwells visa sponsor's family – dinner of pickled, raw and mustard herring, boiled eggs with shrimp and roe, washed down with schnapps. Leif had constructed the traditional sloped wood fence and converted an old barn into bedrooms for his grandchildren with an attic loft. He had an old grinding wheel and worked metal, including rooster weathervanes atop a "crown" chimney. We all had fun at maypole-raising and dancing in their village Slattsberg ("mountain plateau").

 














Walked miles up and downhill in impressive Predator Zoo - Brown, Polar and Kodiak bears, wolverines, leopard, tiger, wolves, owls.

The predators were certainly more formidable than the domestic "horseys" we chose for our "up close and personal" encounter....