The Dalarna region
Dalarna is known as “Sweden in miniature”. Here you will find everything that everyone loves about the Scandinavian country on around 30,000 square kilometers: forests and lakes, birch groves and cute places with wooden houses in Swedish red, hills and mountains. The name of the region also means “the valleys”.
Dalarna is a historic province that not only corresponds to today’s in size and name: Traditions are alive here, which is why the Swedes like to spend their holidays here. For example in Rättvik, where traditional church boats are rowed across the lake for Sunday mass.
You can also experience Sami culture in Dalarna. Idre Sameby is Sweden’s southernmost village of this indigenous people. Renbiten, a Sami family business, offers reindeer walks, nights in a Sami tipi and dishes made with reindeer meat.
In addition to bears and wolves, moose also live in Fulufjället National Park
Source: pa / imageBROKER / Stefan Auth
Dalarna’s Vasaloppet (Vasaloppet) is the oldest cross-country skiing competition in the world, this year it celebrates its 100th anniversary. It follows the historic route taken by Gustav Eriksson, later King Gustav Vasa, to flee from the Danes in 1521, liberating Sweden from Danish rule. Cycling and running competitions are held on the route every summer.
The Fulufjället National Park on the border with Norway is also exciting all year round. Here the Njupeskär falls, at 93 meters one of Sweden’s highest waterfalls, and there are golden eagles, bears, wolves, lynx, arctic foxes, lemmings – and of course the elk, Sweden’s most famous animal.
Source: Infographic WORLD
This spruce has lived for 9550 years
The world’s oldest living tree is 9,550 years old – of course, the record does not apply to the entire plant, but to its root system. “Old Tjikko” is the name of the Norway spruce (Picea abies), which stands in the Fulufjället National Park in Dalarna.
Spruce trees can regrow new trunks from their roots, so they continue to live even when older above-ground parts die off. The trunk of the record tree is “only” a few hundred years old, but the roots have been active for more than 9,500 years. Thus, “Old Tjikko” is actually the “oldest living individual clone tree in the world”.
The trunk of “Old Tjikko” is “only” a few hundred years old, but the roots have been active for more than 9500 years
Source: pa / imageBROKER / Stefan Auth
A stronghold of summer festivals
Dalarna is known to be original, and that also applies to the customs – they are celebrated there just as happily today as they used to be. Especially the midsummer festival, which is as important to Swedes as Christmas. It is always celebrated on the Saturday between June 19th and 25th and the Friday before, this year on June 24th and 25th, usually with family and friends.
But there are also many public festivals in Dalarna, which are idyllic places at Lake Siljan as Midsummer-strongholds known. There are over 100 midsummer celebrations here every year, some even weeks after the June date. In this way, neighboring communities can invite each other.
Leksand, for example, sets up one of the largest Midsummer-Festivals in Sweden. Dressed up in costume and decked out with wreaths, the decorated midsummer tree is set up – Sweden’s longest. Then everyone dances around him, singing, enjoying the first new potatoes with herring, beer and schnapps. According to old folk belief, it is a magical time when elves and trolls appear.
Midsummer celebrations are as important to Swedes as Christmas
Source: Per Bifrost / imagebank.sweden.se
A trash can from Ikea and its namesake
Toftan, isn’t that an Ikea bathroom trash can? It’s correct. Little known outside of Sweden, however, is that Toftan is actually the name of a lake in Dalarna. You can hike wonderfully all year round on the picturesque waters. In the nearby town of Sundborn, it is worth visiting the home of the artist couple Karin (1859-1928) and Carl Larsson (1853-1919). They are regarded as the inventors of the bright, friendly style of living that is now known as typically Swedish.
Here we come full circle with Sweden’s furniture giant, which likes to name its products after Scandinavian places. The Swedish Tourist Board has now launched a special “Discover the Originals” campaign to promote Lake Toftan and other places whose names Ikea has hijacked.
Source: Infographic WORLD
One of the most popular souvenirs from Sweden
The wooden Dala horse is one of the most popular souvenirs for holidaymakers in Sweden and is now associated with the whole country. Originally that is Dala horse but a product specifically of the wooded region of Dalarna, where it was carved hundreds of years ago. The horses are mostly painted red, decorated with white, green or blue bridles and saddles in traditional kurbit art, a peasant painting with ornamental flowers and tendrils, which can also often be seen in historic buildings in Dalarna.
Authentic Dala horses have been made at the Nils Olsson Hemslöjd manufactory in the village of Nusnäs since the 1920s. Visitors can watch the artists at work or get creative themselves. However, the largest Dala horse in the world is made of concrete, stands in the city of Avesta (in Dalarna), is 13 meters high and weighs 66.7 tons.
The wooden Dala horse originally comes from the densely wooded region of Dalarna
Quelle: Amanda Westerbom/imagebank.sweden.se
The quote
“Not a tree, not a blade of grass sprouts in the bare crumbling cleft of stone”
For his eerily romantic story “The Mines in Falun” (1819), writer ETA Hoffmann was inspired by an anecdote that has been handed down from the historic copper mine in Dalarna: a miner who had an accident in the pit in the 17th century was killed Found decades later – mummified and almost intact.
At times, the mine, which was already centuries old, supplied more than half of the world’s copper. The famous Swedish red or Falun red, the typical coating of traditional wooden houses throughout the country, also comes from here – as a by-product of copper mining. After its decommissioning, the Falun mine was opened to visitors as a museum and is now part of the Kopparbergslagen World Heritage Site.
Also in Dalarna you can see the typical, traditional wooden houses
Source: pa / imageBROKER / Wiede, U. & M.
Bizarre, record-breaking, typical: You can find more parts of our regional geography series here.
What to consider for the Easter holiday
The first major travel wave of 2022 is imminent in April, when the Easter holidays begin in the first federal states at the beginning of the month. There are still numerous offers for those who decide on the spur of the moment. The corona restrictions have fallen in many countries – but not everywhere.
Source: WORLD / Thomas Laeber