Homestead Museum – Gräfsnäs (2)

In almost every town or village in Sweden there is a local history society (hembygdsförening). These also usually also maintain one or more old cultural heritage buildings as hembygdsmuseum ~ homestead museum.

If in Sweden you see a road sign pointing to a Hembygdsmuseum, be prepared that this can denote just about anything from a tiny dilapitated cottage open to the public only on rare occasions; to a whole park full of carefully restored old buildings with exhibitions, guided tours, café and souvenir shop etc.

These are some buildings we found in the homestead park at Gräfsnäs – on our way to their main attraction, a castle ruin (which deserves a separate post).

An old barn…

… with some kind of threshing contraption  at the back

Old-fashioned haystack

Cottage with picturesque window

Old watermill

‘Narnia’ lamp post
(the Wardrobe we found a couple of days later)

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Linking to:
FMTSO – Vacation

Museum Railway (Anten - Gräfsnäs)

 

The sign on the letter box says:
The letter box
will be emptied by
railway staff
at the end of traffic days.

Anten is a lake north-west of Alingsås. It is also the name of an old railway station and the starting point of a 12 km museum railway. The station was not really on my list of places to visit; but when we passed the sign we found ourselves kind of automatically turning into that road anyway… Our dad was a big railway and steam train enthusiast; and our family holidays in the past always included stopping at any station house or railway museum!

There were no trains running on this day though, so we just made a short photo stop “for old times sake”. And then got back into the car and drove to the other end of the railway, which was on my list – for reasons you will find out more about in future posts.

Outdoor Wednesday - Alingsås (4)

Not far from the centre of Alingsås we find Nolhaga, a big estate once aquired by Jonas Alströmer (see my first post about Alingsås) in 1725. The present manor house (a bit pretentiously called "slott"=palace) was built a bit later though (by another owner), around 1780. Since the 1920's the estate belongs to the town, and serves as public recreation park.
 
Here are some more views from around the park:

Tidy allotments

"Fishing Villa"

Note the shape of the weather vane on the tower!

Sheep

Pigs

Mini pigs (for mini kids)

 

Ducks

More ducks

Meandering river with fountains, bridges and water lilies

Parking for boats

 

Ruby Tuesday – Alingsås (3)

Café Storken (‘The Stork Café’), Alingsås

This is the where we had lunch on the first day of our trip. As I mentioned in my first post about Alingsås, this little town is quite famous for its many cafés - about one per 1000 inhabitants.

According to a tourist brochure I picked up, the bakery and café traditions here can be traced all the way back to the industrial revolution in the 1700s. When women were employed in the textile manufacture, they no longer had so much time to bake and cook at home.

Anyway I doubt we could have stumbled across a more charming place than this little backyard café in (and outside) a classic old red wooden building. I think to most Swedes this kind of scenery more or less sums up the “essence” of Swedish summer…

Linking to
Ruby Tuesday
Our World Tuesday

Mosaic Monday – Alingsås (2)

This church in Alingsås, Christinae kyrka, was built between 1642-1651 and named after the Christina who was Queen of Sweden around that time; and who donated money to have this church built.

An interesting fact about Christina in this context is that in 1654, she abdicated the throne, converted to Roman Catholicism and moved to Rome. (The Church of Sweden has been Lutheran since the mid 1500s.)

The rounded parish house (seen to the left of the church in the bottom photos of the collage) was added in 2003.

Weekend Reflections – Alingsås (1)

I’m back from our little trip. Actually we arrived back in Borås on Thursday evening. After breakfast on Friday my brother left for the last bit of his trip back to his own home; and I spent the rest of the day unpacking and getting re-organised.

I’m now also facing the job of a thousand photos to sort out… No, I’m not exaggerating. When I copied the camera-card onto the computer, it said exactly 1000 photos! (Plus a few more on the phone…)

I’ve decided to put some extra effort into ‘tagging’ these holiday photos (compared to usual); so I’ll be taking my time about it. But basically I think I will blog about the trip in chronological order.

We started from Borås on Monday morning (20.7), and our first stop was Alingsås, a small(ish) town of 25.000 inhabitants by the river Säveån.

Alingsås got it’s royal charter as a town in 1691 and among other things it is a very picturesque little town with many well-preserved old wooden buildings in the city, and a lot of cafés.

In the main square stands a bust of Jonas Alströmer (1685-1761), a pioneer within agriculture and industry in Sweden. In Sweden he is perhaps best generally known for introducing the potato plant here – which soon became an important staple food all over the country, and still is. But Alströmer was also involved in for example textile industry and trade, shipbuilding, starting a sugar refinery in Gothenburg, and whatnot. He was also one of the founders of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1739.

The old town house (the pink house to the left of the Jonas Alströmer memorial) was built by his son Patrik Alströmer in 1769 (back then as residence for him and his family). The building was acquired by the Town in 1831 and is now listed as a cultural heritage building.

Below are some other random pictures of old wooden buildings in the town – taken while we were strolling around looking for a café where we could have lunch.

In the last photo (for today) please note that in the windows behind the inviting market stand you can see the reflection of the old wooden building on the other side of the street.

Linking to Weekend Reflections