Road Trip Day 1: Finding Faluln

 Well, we had been in Sweden for two days, briefly exploring Gotenberg and eating pastries there, then a day in Stockholm, eating more pastries,  The word "fika" means a coffee and cake break.  It was our new favorite Swedish word and pastime!  One of the first things we did in Stockholm, however, was to secure our rental car for the upcoming seven-day road trip through central Sweden.  We needed to make the arrangements on Friday, as the rental shop was closed on the weekend, so we walked from our hotel to the rental outfit, and set everything up for our Sunday morning departure.  We'd pick up the car keys from a hotel next door.  We of course opted for the extra insurance, as Carla and  I are very cautious middle-aged ladies (assuming we live to 130!) , and we feel proud of always covering our asses.  We consider this a matter of financial responsibility and a public service! The agent gave us the paperwork and the GPS equipment we would be using to guide us on our travels to nifty sights, adventures, and our hotels.

Now in hindsight, perhaps we should have spent a bit more time (like ANY time at all!) reading the operator's manual for the GPS system, but we opted instead to go eat cheeseburgers and then hit the famous Absolut Ice Bar in our hotel.  I thought the bar would a fairly cheesy attraction, but entrance and a free drink were included in our tour, so off we went, donning floor length fur-lined capes and heavy gloves to enable us to partake of  our drinks in the frigid venue.  My predictions of a high cheese factor proved to be completely unfounded, as the bar was gorgeous --everything in it is made of ice--the bar, the chairs and bar stools, the  glasses, and the beautifully etched walls and panels.  These icy walls portray scenes from a  much loved children's book about a boy who is turned into a goose, which then  gleefully soars and dives through all of Sweden's different regions and biomes, creating a frozen panorama of the country's flora and fauna.  The book became a geography textbook  used by countless children throughout Sweden.  In short, The Ice Bar was gorgeous, classy, and educational!  What a combo!

 

"Skal" or Cheers!

After sliding out of the ice bar--no, we only had one lovely vodka cocktail apiece, but I like the imagery of us sliding smoothly out of the frozen pub--we headed up to our room for bed, so we could spend Saturday touring Stockholm by bus and boat, and then head out of town early on Sunday, aiming for the Unesco World Heritage city of Falun, home of the world's largest copper mine.

Bright and early, we slipped out of the hotel after  a fine Sunday breakfast buffet, picked up our lovely diesel "Superb" (we think it was a Swedish version of a VW Passat) with automatic transmission, which Carla had specifically requested-- manual transmissions being the norm in Sweden, at least for rental cars.  Carla hooked up the GPS, we plugged in our first stop, and off we went, after traversing the maze that was the multi-leveled underground parking garage.

Ready to Roll

"Exit"

Construction Speed Zone--yes, I am very juvenile!

Leaving quite early Sunday morning, we encountered virtually no traffic and soon found ourselves driving  out of Stockholm on a pretty darn spiffy freeway.  We would in fact find the roads we traveled on to be excellent in construction and in maintenance throughout our journey.  However, we were about to discover that actually finding the places we were seeking proved to be a bit of a challenge the first two days out.  A few of the designated "must see" destinations gave us no addresses other than the towns where they were located .  So we figured they must be big deals and well-marked within said towns.  That assumption turned out not to necessarily be the case.  I mean, you'd think we could spot a castle in a fairly small town, or signs leading to word-renowned silver mine.  Again, no luck. And by the way, all GPS devices are not the same, and have different set procedures to follow.  We hadn't reckoned with that little tidbit, and found that our particular device was particularly fussy.   Add to that, Swedish words are very long, and not easily entered into a GPS!   I had assumed my role as the designated "Read the Addresses and Spell the Words to Carla  Lady."  I of course read them in what I believed to be a Swedish accent. Oh, and have I mentioned that Carla has severe vision problems?  She's perfectly able to drive, but finding tiny letters on a teeny tiny keypad proved not to be her strong point.  So she had to hold her magnifying glass in one hand and one-finger type with the other hand.  Sometimes it took us ten minutes to actually enter a destination into the GPS, only to receive the message "Destination not found." Make that G-D GPS.  Here's a sample address: "Frimurare-holmen:  Engelbrektsgaten 52 , Ostra Nobelgaten. Orebro."

We had gotten pretty good at navigating the "rotaries"  or "round-abouts" as I called them back in my New Jersey days.  Once out of the really big cities (i.e. Stockholm, Goteberg, and Malmo), you rarely saw stop lights at intersections. Instead, you just enter the rotary or circle, and veer off it at one of its four designated  exits.  Kind of like flying off  a slow-moving pinwheel if you were a ladybug.  These rotaries are actually very efficient, and keep traffic from backing up.  However, on our first day's outing, missing destination after destination, with the GPS lady shouting at us,  "Enter the rotary!   Take the second exit from the rotary!"  (Which basically meant you just stayed going on the same road in the same direction),  left us highly annoyed.  Sometimes we'd get to take the third exit and go left.  Very exciting.  Sometimes we were directed to turn in 70 meters,  or 50, or 340 meters.  We  were not very good at estimating distance in meters, so sometimes we'd be all geared up to turn, and would make a wildly mistaken premature exit off the highway. I think I have new-found empathy for all those tiny little sperm who never make it to their destinations! Other times we were marking off 500 meters, and GPS gal, now affectionately nicknamed "F#*$#!g Bitch"  would yell "Turn left NOW!" and we'd careen off the road and find ourselves in yet another tiny little hamlet filled with red houses and nothing else.  Certainly no castles, silver mines, or fully operational museum villages with working blacksmiths and confectioners.

By three in the afternoon, we had failed to find  the Gronso Castle,  the cluster of medieval churches, the Viking Age rock carvings, the old silver mine and its museum, the police museum, and several suggested craft and souvenir shops on our Sunday itinerary.  We were batting .0000.  We were tired, thirsty, and hungry (read:  no pastries!). We were exceedingly frustrated, and Carla and I were each displaying a sharp sense of direction that was the dead opposite of the other's. We had disconnected the GPS, as F.B. seemed to be pointedly ignoring us.  We were now relying on my Lonely Planet's Guide to Sweden, which, by the way, I highly recommend.  Only if you are going to Sweden.  If you are journeying somewhere else, check out one of their other books!

Having completely missed all the tour's suggested "do not miss!" destinations, so far, the only  highlight left was "The World's Biggest Dala Horse."  Looking back at my itinerary, I see it is merely the biggest Dala Horse in Sweden.  But given that the brightly painted carved wooden horse is Sweden's national symbol, I think it's safe to call this the world's largest damn painted Swedish  horse.  My map and my keen navigator's eye told me that we were entering the town of Avesta, home of said Dala horse.  We turned the GPS back on, and the voice trapped inside started shrieking at us "Exit highway in 20 meters!"  We of course missed that exit.  Twenty meters comes up on you pretty fast on a freeway!  So we  kept going.  Suddenly on the left side of the road, at what appeared to be a shopping center, was a gigantic red horse festooned with brightly colored flowers.  We'd found it! But, the tantalizing beast eluded us as we could not figure out how to get back to it from the freeway.  That should have been a no-brainer, but of course it wasn't.  Carla and I were each sure that we knew how to backtrack to the horse, and each or our planned return routes completely canceled out the other's.  So, it ended up taking us 45 minutes to back-track three miles.  But we were AT THE DALA HORSE!

From our tour brochure:  "...your first stop in Dalarna  province is Avesta, where you will find the largest Dala Horse in Sweden. This is the perfect place to stop for a great photo and afternoon snack at the nearby cafe/restaurant.  Now I don't want to complain too much, but I have to say that I think the Dala Horse here in Avesta has seen slightly better days.  Not yet decrepit, but definitely a bit faded in the paint department, and slightly cracked.  The garden it is standing guard in now has some rather weedy looking shrubs instead of the lovely rose bushes pictured in the brochures. It all made me think of a roadside Brontosaurus  in America's southwest, maybe on Route 66.   I know, I know,  Brontosaurus never existed--Apatosauraus was the real dinosaur, with Brontosaurus a fraud, or a paleontologist's inadvertent mistake.  But trust me--this was the Brontosaurus of Dala Horses!

And the aforementioned cafe/restaurant was also a bit past its prime.  Kind of dreary, but attempting to be cheery with red checkered cloths on white tables that were laden with various and sundry antiques available for purchase,  it was a serve yourself type of place--pick out a pre-packaged delight, and then I guess have it microwaved. Now I am not an adventurous eater; I didn't hear any English being spoken; and I was unable to tell what most of the food was.  I am also very cheap when it comes to wasting money on  food I might not like.When I don't know what I may be getting to eat when it is unrecognizable,  there is always the dread fear that someone might slip me some kind of hideous fermented fish hiding out in lingonberry jam.  I do, in fact, seem to be particularly leery of seafood. And if  I would have paid for the meal , I'd have completely wasted my money, 'cause no way would I eat that fish! I'd rather starve! I nudged Carla, and we decided to head back out on the highway and find a better, slightly classier food venue on our way to Falun.

We ended up at a 7-Eleven about ten minutes away.  I had a candy bar.

By this time we were tired of cursing at our drive-tour itinerary, at the GPS the we still hadn't figured out how to use, at the general lack of road maps that made any sense to us, and at our inability to find the cool stuff we had been looking forward to seeing.  Our spirits were lifted, however, when I pulled out the travel voucher for our hotel that night in Falun, and saw that most unexpectedly DINNER was included with our stay!  We were giddy with excitement, and every time the GPS broad would would mumble something at us, we would holler back, "We get a free dinner!  We get a free dinner!"

In no time at all, we had checked into the Falun Clarion Inn, unpacked our stuff, and found  a delightful local museum within walking distance.  Now we were doing the tourist stuff!  The museum  was wonderful and very informative, with a huge array of interesting examples of Swedish culture.  My favorite?  (I am SO boring and provincial.)  An ancient 10- minute black and white  film on the history of laundry washing!  That and the embroidery displayed in the clothing exhibit was about all the excitement I could take by then, so we headed back to  enjoy the dinner that awaited us gratis.

It was fish.  Thankfully not fermented.  And the broccoli soup was delicious.  Plus, I did get this very cool picture of a slightly worse-for-wear me hanging out with a slightly worse-for-wear Dala Horse!