Jämtland

After a full day of museum-going, we got in the car and headed off to what we hoped would be a peak experience, spending the night at a Saami village and eating at the related four-star restaurant.

Part of the purpose of this whole trip is to visit different parts of Sweden, with a view towards maybe buying a cabin somewhere, someday.  Jämtland is gorgeous, at least in the summer. It is a real treat for folks from mountain areas, after the extensive flatlands around Stockholm.  We suspect that winter travel might be a bit different, as the number of ski resorts we passed would seem to indicate copious amounts of snow.  And we even saw “highway signs” for snowmobiles!!!

  

Large flat areas, like in the picture on right, were once shallow lakes, that became filled with dead

vegetation, then becoming peat bogs, called “myr” in Swedish.

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Flowers are everywhere in June and July.

  

 

 

The low bushes are wide spread,  mostly blueberry and lingon. The

blueberries are generally really full of flavor, as are lingon – a feast

for critters and people alike.

 

Walking in the woods was one thing; walking across what seemed like open areas wasn’t as easy as it looked!  The “grass, moss, low growing plants” was such that it was like walking across a very lumpy, very soft mattress….

  

You step up here……                              ….and end up steping DOWN instead!

In some places it is like walking on a very large trampoline and, if your legs are up to it, one can “boing-boing” along like Apollo astronauts sometimes did on the Moon.

  

Very good gravel roads, some of the very best we have ever driven on.

  

Snowshoe rabbit in summer outfit. If you are not already familiar with snowshoe rabbits, note those really big hind feet – add some more fur and they are great snowshoes.

 

  

Notice that the destinations are 20-30 km away. These trails are marked year-round with tall poles, each bearing a red X on top.  The difficult walking described above was along one of these “trails”…which are really only passable in winter, when the undergrowth is buried under snow.

  

  

The last 3 pics are at the ski resort town of Åre, where we were very glad we had brought our long underwear!  It was 6C (42F), “breezy”, and had a tendency to rain suddenly, even if the sun was shining.  We didn’t take pictures of the town, but you can just imagine any upscale ski area you like.  We thought it looked a lot like Vail….