Saturday 25 July 2015

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.

Map picture

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.

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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.

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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. CIMG5153

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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.

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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. Winking smile

Linking to Weekend Reflections

14 comments:

  1. I enjoy a good look round and it looks as if I am in for one. Good to see you back.

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    1. Thanks Adrian. I'm happy to be able to show some other views than just my own town for once.

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  2. every scene is so full of color and is so clean and beautiful. I like that pink house and the doors are beautiful.. all the buildings are so pretty and the water views. this town is as beautiful as yours..

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    1. Thanks Sandra. Yes, Alingsås is a pretty little town. I can imagine living there (even if I have no plans to actually do so).

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  3. Nice pictures and reflections, especially the first two pictures!

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    1. Thanks Nicol. I too am always attracted by a nice water view - especially with reflections! :)

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  4. Hope you had a great time and look forward to seeing lots of photos. This town in lovely, so clean and crisp looking. Nice to hear about the history, too. I like the stairs going down on either side of the river. Is that a feature of a lot of your towns?

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    1. Thanks Pauline. We were lucky to get a nice start with good photo weather for our first day! I've not been out travelling much this century but I suspect that stairs like that by the riverside may be somewhat of a recent trend, yes. Just like there are a lot more street / open air cafés and restaurants nowadays than there were in the past - in spite of our rather chilly climate.

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  5. Beautiful pictures, my son lives in Alingsås with his little family.

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    1. Thanks Eva. I can imagine it being a good place to live as well as just visiting :)

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  6. It is indeed a picturesque town, and I found the information about Mr. Alströmer very interesting. Looking forward to learning about the next leg of your trip!

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    1. I'll probably be blogging about this trip for weeks ahead, Meike :) ...

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  7. I'm going to enjoy this trip. The first thing I had to do was get an idea of scale and distance between places. So 36km to Alingsås. Apart from its picturesque beauty (you were fortunate with the sun) I noted the cafes. That means sitting and taking in the ambience with a cup of coffee. That I like!

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  8. No long travel distances on this trip, Graham. :)

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