We left Stockholm to start a multi-day road trip northwest to the Dalarna region. It was gray, cool and drizzly – a change from yesterday’s perfect weather, but not unpleasant. First we stopped in the cute lakeside village of Sigtuna, one of Sweden’s oldest towns (980 AD). Next we went on to Sala, checked into our AirB&B cabin, then did a tour of the Sala Silver Mine, a surprise that Ana booked.
Wow! It was a very intense experience. The mine started in the 1500s and operated until 1908. You go to 60 meters depth, though the working mine went to 155 meters. There is no elevator, it’s all stairs!
I don’t think the pics quite capture the scale of it, but it feels HUGE…like I can’t believe that humans built this, 10cm a day by the old methods. It’s about 37° F and moist. We didn’t get to tour the rest of the grounds but there’s a lot of history to see there.
We closed out the day with good pizza and a tour of a large grocery superstore.
The town hall – it was closed for a wedding (though we didn’t see any people there). — in Sigtuna, Sweden.Now driving on to SalaOur cabin!We rolled a die to see who got the loft and who got bunk beds (we got the loft)— at Sala silvergruva.I try not to laugh at other languages, but those two signs gave me a chuckle…The longest mine shaft is under this structureReady for action!Our guide Johanna was AWESOME. She did the 75 minute tour in both Swedish & English, answered any questions anybody threw at her, and does 2 or 3 of these tours a day, involving going up and down ~300 stairs each time!Recreation of the baskets the workers would ride up and down inLooking down the shaft to the water below – it was dizzying!On the upper part of the rock you can see dynamite marks from that era of the mining. Earlier methods involved burning wood – also sounds horrendous!This is a little hard to parse the scale of, but that mound on the right is huge!We could see our breath…One of two big spiral staircases we went down (and up)Topside againWe asked our guide Johanna for a local dinner recommendation and she sent us to a great Neapolitan style pizzeria where she used to work. Apparently in Sweden you do not share pizzas, so we each got our own! Rob got a kebab pizza and I got sausage/mushroom/pepper. — at Höga Grader.We picked up a few items at this grocery that I could have spent hours exploring! Here is the traditional pick-your-own candy section.The herring sectionCheese – and these are unholy sized blocks of cheese!Ana has told us that every store has a taco section, but both grocery taco items and restaurant tacos are very disappointing in Sweden. She misses good Mexican food.But they do have LEGO !Today’s step count isn’t as impressive, but check out the flights climbed! Thanks, silver mine.
