Lakeside Views, Canal and Locks

Thursday, 14 July - and time to go back home (for me) to Borås.

On our way out of Karlstad, on my request, we drove down to one of the beaches along Lake Vänern - Skutberget. I was glad to see it hadn't changed much.

We drove down on along the west side of Lake Vänern this time, and stopped for lunch (and a short stroll down to the marina) in a small town, Åmål. 

(We had lunch indoors, as there were threatening rain clouds hovering above...)

We also made a short stop at a countryside church along the way - at Tösse - mostly just to stretch our legs a bit. 

"Glory to God on High"

(side chapel)

A somewhat unusual display of old chandeliers
in the cloak room (lol)

We also made a stop in Trollhättan, the town where we were born and grew up. Last time we were there, in 2015, it was raining all day. This time, we seemed to have left the rain behind us in Åmål. So we found our way down to the locks, walked around for a bit, and had an ice cream in the café there before entering the last leg of the journey. 

Trollhättan was founded on the river Göta älv, at the Trollhättan Falls. The site was first mentioned in literature from 1413. --- Utilization of the river falls was the first important business activity in the area. From the Middle Ages milling and sawing operations have been conducted where the city center is now located. For centuries, Trollhättan Falls was an obstacle for boats travelling the river, until a lock system was built (1795-1800). --- It has since been updated several times, and the present locks were finished in 1916.

 

 

 

 

Old locks - much narrower than the later ones.

 

 

 

Leaving Trollhättan, we drove through the village outside town where we used to live, but didn't stop (we revisited there too in 2015). But we drove past our old house and I managed to snap a photo through the car window. (You only see part of it here, though - there's an extension on the other side.)

 

Typical countryside landscape on the outskirts of that village.

Next stop wasn't until the village outside Borås, where our parents lived in their retirement years (and where our dad grew up). We visited our family graves in the churchyard there...

 

 

 

... and then also drove down to a spot near a beach by the lake, from where we could get a sneak peek at our old house, across the railway...

With lots of trees taken down both in the garden and along the railway since 'our' time, they must have proper lake view from there these days - which we never really did (surrounded by tall hedges and trees). One was also never able to see that much of the house from across the railway in the past. With a large conservatory added now, it looks huge! And it's being repainted. (Well, the house has seen some changes before in its lifetime... The original smaller house was built by my grandfather in 1930 - dark brown in colour back then, and still in my early childhood. Then for a while it was yellow but with the top of the gables brown. Then extended to double size in the early 1990s by my parents, and all yellow.) 

The views down by the lake still look pretty much the same as always, though! :)