:: Monday, September 20, 2004 ::

Of lakes and cycles

With today being another dark and rainy day in Sweden, I'm glad yesterday was beautiful and sunny. I'm even more glad I took advantage of it by going cycling around the good sized lake north of town.

Falun is situated right between 2 lakes, with some small lakes and a river/stream running through the middle connecting the two. To the south is the quite large Lake Runn, while to the north is Lake Varpan. (If you click on the map of Falun link, you will be able to see the two lakes.)

So yeterday, with clouds only partially obscuring the sky, and the weather relatively warm, I set off for a circuit around Lake Varpan. Unlike the tiny lake Östanforsån near where I live, which is surrounded by biking and walking trails, I discovered that such was not the case around Lake Varpan, and ended up riding along roads for the most part. But they were quite clear on a Sunday afternoon, and I really only feared for my life once or twice! ;)

Overall, the ride was about 18 km, or 11 miles, and was quite nice, although a little tiring (but in a good way). I passed through a handful of little villages, such as Stennäset, Bergsgården, and Österå. On the northern side of the lake, I passed by several farms, with Swedish horses and sheep grazing and sleeping. I also passed through the typical Swedish forest, and there were several people out and about collecting berries.

On the trip back down the eastern side, I realized why there were no bike trails - everyone has houses along the lakeshore. I was riding along on the road, forest on either side of me, and looking through the trees, I could just make out these little cottages on the shore. I kept thinking of the old fairy tales, like the Grimm brothers stories, of Goldilocks stumbling across the cottage of the 3 bears in the woods, or Hansel & Gretel finding the witch's cottage. Sweden's big, dark, thick forests really bring those old European stories to mind. In any case it was really cool.

So an afternoon well spent - hopefully the exercise did my lingering sickness some good, too. And hopefully the weather will stay good on the next few weekends for me to go out and do more things.

And I'll be posting up some pics soon, too!

Swedish word of the day: sjö, which means "lake"

:: posted by Rob 6:53 PM [+] ::

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