Over to Örebro

Örebro. Another city. Another Umlaut. And another wonderful city in Sweden.

The train from Gävle to Örebro took about three and a half hours. On it, I learned that Sweden, or at least the part I travelled through, has a lot of large, lush forests. Wait. That’s not fair. I shouldn’t have called them lush forests. They probably drink only water. Despite being childless, I can get off the occasional dad joke. Sorry about that.

There are also some low mountains, along with hills of a variety of sizes, all of them forested, except for the cuts down some of them that look like they are probably ski runs in the winter.

Even those that are hills, not mountains, are beautiful, and they should never take a back seat to a mountain. I mean, really. Both hills and mountains are quite large and would fill the seat—front or back—leaving no room for anyone else.

Some of those forests must be missing some of their components. During the journey, we passed a few long trains hauling cut, as-of-yet-unmilled lumber. Their cars had mostly open sides, with just tall tines securing the heaps of pines they carried.

In truth, I don’t know if they were pines. But after calling the prongs of the cars tines, I wanted to go with a rhyme, accurate or not. Man cannot live by alliteration alone.

Just to be clear, they weren’t full pine trees, or whatever species they were. They were just the trunks stripped of all branches.

In addition to the forests, mountains and hills, there were also some towns, farms, and lakes along the route. Sweden is an exceptionally scenic country, or at least the part I saw out the window of the train.

Just after the train left Gävle Central Station, a voice came on the speaker system and made a long announcement, solely in Swedish. I didn’t understand a word.

Before each stop, an announcement called out the upcoming station, again only in Swedish. Fortunately, there’s also an electronic signboard in the train car displaying the station name. Surprisingly, the announced name sometimes came almost, but not quite, within a country mile of how I would have pronounced it. Close enough that I might, possibly, have recognized it if it were my stop, but distant enough that my unschooled pronunciation would likely have caused uncontrollable guffawing in any Swede who heard it.

There was once, however, when the pronunciation of what was up on the signboard barely came within a galaxy of how I would have said it given the chance. Hearing my articulation of it might have caused apoplexy in a Swede, or, more likely, just a hopelessly confused look as they wondered what the heck this anglophone was trying to say.

If there hadn’t been a signboard, and that had been my stop, I would have missed it unless I figured it out because it was the right time for my stop, or I had the sense to look at my location on a map on my phone. However, that wasn’t a problem at my stop. For one thing, there was the electronic signboard. For another, Örebro was the last stop for the train I was on. Of course, I don’t mean the last stop forever. It looked like a reasonably new train. Just the last for the particular scheduled train ride I was on.

There was also a lengthy announcement, still only in Swedish, while the train was rolling along with no immediately approaching station. For all I knew, it could have said, in the Swedish equivalent, “Dear passengers, our brakes failed and our accelerator is jammed in the open position. There is a freight train stuck on the track ahead of us. It’s filled with a highly flammable hydrocarbon. Feel free to use the complimentary wifi on board to try to get your affairs in order in the little time you have left.”

Because we weren’t engulfed in an inferno after a crash at any point during the trip, I assume that wasn’t what the announcement said.

A short time after the announcement finished, we stopped on a siding and waited there a few minutes until another train passed us going the other direction. I imagine the announcement probably referenced that upcoming unscheduled stop.

Speaking of the station announcements, the “Öre” portion of Örebro is pronounced pretty much as an anglophone would guess, but with the “e” pronounced as a soft “e.” However, the “bro” part is not pronounced like “bro” as in “hey, bro.” It’s pronounced like “brew” as in, “Hey, bro. Brew some tea, will ya?”

Aside: Speaking of “hey, bro,” the word for “hi” in Swedish is “hej.” But, it’s pronounced like we pronounce “hey.” I.e., the same as we pronounce “hay.” It’s sometimes doubled in a greeting, so it sounds like “hey, hey” as in, “Hey Hey We’re The Monkeys.” (If you’re young, Google it.)

Eventually, I alighted at Örebro Central Station, none the worse for wear. Not that anyone wore me, you understand.

I didn’t get to my hotel, check in, and get ready to head out until 1:30. And I didn’t have lunch on the train. So my first stop was at a coffee shop for a sandwich and an espresso. This is a long way of saying that this is the only post I’ll publish today.

OMG, Örebro

I’ve only been in Örebro for a half-day so far, and I’ve got a full day here tomorrow before I leave the next morning. I saw a couple of sights this afternoon and did a little aimless wandering around. I’ll get to that anon, but I feel the need to say this first.

As the kids say, OMG! OMG, Örebro. OMG! OMG! What a gorgeous city you’ve got here, at least what I’ve seen so far, which has been exclusively in the central part of the city. If the narrative below doesn’t come across as gushing, kindly mentally edit it, adding in a high level of gushingness.

Örebro has some buildings that look stately, some that look old and stately, some that look charming, and some that look old and charming. One of the old, stately buildings is the old city hall, Rådhuset.

True, there are some buildings that appear as if the architect said, ‘Look, we’ve got to put up a building. Let’s just get it done.” They’re primarily utilitarian, but even they are mildly handsome.

Plus, there are public squares and parks dotted about. And there’s a pedestrianized shopping street. Regular readers know that, even if that’s the only thing I think it’s got going for it, I’ll give a city or town bonus points if it has a pedestrianized shopping street. Örebro doesn’t need the bonus points as, so far, I rate it highly enough without it. But, still, it has a pedestrianized shopping street.

Örebro also has a beautiful river, the Svartån.

And there’s a big castle, but that’s one of the sights I saw today, so I’ll hold off on talking about it.

The most beautiful part I saw today—incredibly beautiful—was the walk I took between the two sights I visited. That’s not the reason I took the route. I had no idea about its beauty. It was just the route Apple Maps told me to take. I’ll talk about that in a separate section below.

Maybe I’ll see some areas of Örebro tomorrow that will cause me to think a little less of it, but so far, wow!

Örebro Slott

Örebro Slott is a real castle’s castle. Unlike, Gävle Slott, which is a, not ugly, but an uncastle-like, wimpy, effete, modern-looking buiding, Örebro Slott is a big, imposing, stone structure that looks like, well, a castle.

The Svartån, and a channel off it, flows around Örebro Slott forming a beautiful moat. The castle has four “towers,” one positioned at each of the four corners of the castle. One of those “towers” has a larger diameter than the other three and a higher roof than the others that look likes like the top of one of those old, peaked German helmets.

I put “towers” in quotes because, to me, a tower is something that should be taller than the main part of the building. The occupiable portions of these aren’t. (Although, the spiked roof of one is definitely higher than the main part of the castle, and it’s hard to tell with the other three.) But my guidebooks and some signage at the castle calls them towers.

For a fee, the public can go into Örebro Slott. There are some exhibits inside.

The first room contains models of the castle and Örebro as they were at one time. The signage in this room was all in Swedish, but there was an amply supply of a double-sided plasticized page that translated the information. That’s where I got most of the details in the next few paragraphs.

The castle was first built in the 14th century, but it was rebuilt and expanded in the 15th century. In the 17th century it was rebuilt again to become a palace. After a period of decay, the castle was restored in the 1750s, putting some low conical roofs on the towers, along with some other remodelling.

The latest major renovation was done betwen 1897 and 1900. Looking at it, I’d say it’s had a good clearning or two since then.

Farther on in Örebro Slott, the Örebro County Museum has a little, and I do mean a little, space included with the price of admission to the castle. I believe the two exhibits there are temporary, so don’t blame me if you go and the museum replaced them with something else in the meantime.

The theme of the first small room was consumption a couple of hundred years ago. Consumption was the museum’s term. (There were English explanatory pamplets) It wasn’t referring to the old-timey disease or the consumption of food. They meant the purchase of everyday goods by everyday people. A few small display cases held some clothing and everyday household items from the period.

The other small exhibit room, and I’m confident this was a temporary exhibition, displayed the art of one artist, Jan Håfström. The exhibit was titled “The Child in the Tower.” Many of the works in the show, but by no means all, included caricature skeletal heads on top of what looked to me to be mummy-wrapped bodies, but in a variety of monochrome colours.

There was another small room in the Örebro County Museum, but it was a children’s activity room.

Another open room was the Hall of State, an attractive space with a dining room table set for five in the centre. The table had a swan centerpiece.

Paintings of some former monarchs, their consorts, and I think a hanger-on adorned the walls of the Hall of State. All but two particularly large ones said they were copies of the originals.

Another exhibit in the museum explored the witch trials and executions in Örebro a few hundred years ago. Signs in this, I think temporary, exhibition were in both Swedish and English.

I learned that from the Middle Ages all the way up until the mid-19th century, Swedish counties had executioners who carried out death sentences for adjudicated witches.

Sweden took its laws in this regard directly from the Bible. Exodus 22:18 states ‘You shall not permit a sorceress to live.’

So there you have it. It’s laid out clearly in the Bible. So sorcery must be true. Either that or the Bible is … no, never mind.

According to another sign in the exhibition, “Witch hysteria in Sweden began in June 1667 when iI-year-old Gertrud Svensdotter and little Mats Nilsson went off to herd goats. Perhaps Gertrud swore when she realised the troublesome creatures had run off to an islet in the river. However, it was not only the goats who were wilful. Mats argued over their food; both were hungry, but Gertrud took the bread.

“From the riverbank, Mats watched as Gertrud ventured across the river to retrieve the goats. Perhaps anger welled up inside him that a girl was stronger than he was. Upon returning home, a story had formed in his mind. Gertrud must have walked on water! How else could she have reached the island? Mats told his father, who listened carefully.

“If she had walked on water, it must be witchcraft.”

After a year of interrogation, Gertrud eventually confessed to having done a deal with the devil. Not only that, but fifty other people were also implicated. Gertrud was sentenced to death but wasn’t executed because of her tender age, but not all of the other fifty were so lucky.

Huh. You probably thought that modern conspiracy theories in the world today were wild. But there are probably only a few thousand modern conspiracy theories as wild as believing that there are witches who conspire with Satan. And there are probably no more than a few hundred million people worldwide today who believe those modern wild conspiracy theories. (Those are only guesses on my part. The true numbers may be higher.)

The Walk from Örebro Slott to Wadköping

As I said above, I didn’t choose the route from Örebro Slott to my next destination for its beauty. I had no idea what it would look like. I just followed the route Apple Maps gave me and lucked into the splendour.

The walk started off taking me through some small, tranquil parks beside Örebro Slott that are nestled between the Svartån and some channels off it.

The route then continued onto a lovely riverwalk beside the Svartån. Here, the river is very self-confident. It is no doubt aware of its great beauty, but doesn’t flaunt it. The water flows peacefully past pastoral banks bathed in flowers and green ground cover. Trees grace the civilized path.

For a portion of the way, large, handsome homes grace the other side of the Svartån. Where there aren’t homes on that shore, there was vegetation and what looked like a slightly more rugged riverwalk.

At one point, the riverwalk passes by a park that my guidebooks recommend. I’ll probably go there tomorrow. On the border between the park and the riverwalk, there were flower beds with a profusion of flowers that had purple powderpuff blossoms bursting in air.

(Just to be clear, “powderpuff” was my description of the blossoms. I don’t know the name of that type of flower. If it is “powderpuff,” then I’m an inadvertent genius. Apple Photos guesses they are syringas, but I’m skeptical. The picture of a syringa that Apple Photos showed me when I asked it to tell me what the flowers in my picture were, and other pictures of syringas I found on the web, don’t look like what I saw.)

It was gorgeous.

Wadköping

Wadköping is an open-air museum. I’d been to something like it in Oslo on last year’s trip to Norway, the Norwegian Folk Museum. There’s also something similar in Stockholm, Skansen, that I went to on my trip there more than a decade ago. I may go back when I’m in Stockholm at the end of this trip.

Wadköping is much smaller, probably by and order or two of magnitude, and more compact than those other two, but the concept is the same. They got a bunch of small buildings, residential and commercial, that were in use a couple of hundred years ago somewhere in the general area (I’m not sure how wide a general area), dismantled them, and then reassembled them in the open-air museum.

For a couple of the buildings in Wadköping, the public could only peer in through roped off open doors at the furniture and period costumed mannequins. Some were simply for viewing from outside. Others had modern-day functional uses such as a restaurant and gift shop. There was also a silversmith and woodworker busy with their craft in their respective, adjacent shops. Goods, that I presume they or their colleagues made at Wadköping were available for sale inside.

It was enjoyable and interesting to look at.

Not bad for a first half-day in Örebro, eh?