Dalarna travel guide
Dalarna represents all that is quintessentially Swedish. This is the home of the Dala horse (dalahäst), the brightly coloured carved wooden horses. With its colourful costumes, centuries-old traditions of music and dance, Midsummer festivals and evocative rural landscape, its folklore and beauty attract an increasing number of visitors each year.
For a change of pace, explore the gentle tranquillity of the region’s fäbodar, which offer a taste of back–to–the–land, organic living. These pasture cottages and surrounding buildings, dating from the 15th and 16th centuries, although found all over Sweden, are most often associated with Dalarna.
They constitute a living museum, where cows are milked, butter is churned, messmör (a type of sweet, spreadable goat’s cheese) is made, and the classic tunnbröd (flat bread) is baked, in the same way that it has been done for centuries. Many of the fäbodar are open to visitors, selling local produce or serving great home–cooking.
Places to visit and things to do in Dalarna
Here we outline a few of the best things to see and do in Dalarna.
Midsummer celebrations at Lake Siljan
Dalarna is the heart of all things Swedish, where the old traditions and costumes are as natural a part of feast days as they were 100 years ago. Lake Siljan, the largest of 6,000 lakes that legend says were gouged out of the landscape by a falling meteorite, is the symbol of these folklore traditions.
Indeed, nowhere is the feast of Midsommar (Midsummer) celebrated more enthusiastically than in the lakeside communities, where the wooden houses are painted a special dark red with white trim. Dancers kick their heels around the decorated maypole into the summer night, boosting their energy with traditional dishes. In June, local people in costume row long ‘church-boats’ to Rättvik Kyrka at the southeastern end of the lake, recreating the times when this was the easiest way to journey in from outlying farms.Tälberg
Perched above Siljan and affording lovely views, Tällberg is one of the most popular holiday spots.This is a typical Dalarna village, complete with maypole and timber buildings. A quiet stroll down to the lakeside here at sunset is magical.
Nusnäs and the Dala horse
Nusnäs is the main source of the Dalahäst (Dala horse), the carved, brightly painted wooden horses, which became a symbol of Sweden after they were shown at the New York World Exhibition in 1939. During the summer you can watch the carving and painting in the small factory, Nils Olsson Hemslöjd.
Mora
Mora is a pleasant lakeside town, best known as the home of Anders Zorn (1860–1920), a painter whose lavish works were part of the National Romantic movement of the time. You can visit his house and studio (Zorngarden) which are as he left them.
Bears
Bears at the Grönklitt Bear Sanctuary a little farther north roam the natural forest of their large enclosures. Visitors walk to special viewing platforms for a superb view of the bears and the surrounding countryside. The park is also a home to wolves and lynx.
Music-making
Music is one of the most defining characteristics of Dala culture. Musik vid Siljan (Music at Lake Siljan) and the Falu Folk Music Festival are two annual festivals that attract visitors from all over Sweden and abroad. Distinctly Dala are the spelmansstämmor, folk musicians’ rallies, rather like an Irish ceilidh, such as the one held each summer in Bingsjö, 30km (19 miles) east of Rättvik, where octogenarian fiddlers turn the classic polka into a musical performance that rivals that of any blues master.
An exotic setting for listening to music is Dalhalla, a cavernous outdoor concert arena set in the depths of an abandoned limestone quarry near the town of Rättvik. The annual summer festivals feature artists of international standing (to book tickets and for further information, visit www.siljan.se).
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