Our mailing address here in Sweden indicates that we are on the island of Frösön, but we aren't. It's also a much wider postal district. But one brilliantly clear, sunny but cold day, we decided to have a drive around the island itself. We've been over there several times...the shortest route to Östersund is the bridge to Frösön and then another bridge to Östersund. The Åre/Östersund airport is on Frösön. We do our grocery shopping at the ICA Valhalla on Frösön. One of our favorite bakeries, Tage's Konditori, is there as well. But we had really only seen a small portion of the island.
We tried to do the drive while our friend Ami was here for a visit, setting out on a similarly sunny day. But we'd barely driven past the grocery store when a blinding snowstorm came out of nowhere! We turned back as soon as we could and headed for the Jamtli museum instead.
February 7th proved to be a perfect choice for the drive. It was too cold to want to go skiing (-13C / 8F), but too beautiful and sunny to want to stay home.
First stop, Frösö kyrka (church). There has been a church on this site since sometime in the 1000s, and this one was built in the 1200s. It was largely rebuilt in the 1700s. In 1898, they were installing a lightning rod at the request of their insurance company, and as a result the church caught fire! They managed to save all of the contents, but little remained other than the walls. It was rebuilt, and subsequent renovations took it back to how it probably looked in the 1700s.
Bell-towers were often kept separate from medieval churches so that the bells could sound the alarm if / when the church caught fire. Wooden chuches + lots of candles..... This lovely bell-tower was built in 1754. The large bell, called Birgittaklockan, dates to the 1300s. It was named for Saint Birgitta, who is supposed to have passed through Frösön on her pilgrimage to Trondheim to visit the tomb of Saint Olav. One can still walk the 580-kilometer St. Olavsleden pilgrim's trail from Sundsvall on Sweden's east coast to Trondheim on Norway's west coast.
There were lots of lovely, sparkly frosty trees! The camera can't quite capture the sparkles.
View toward the top of Frösön...468 meters / 1535 feet above sea level.
There's a viewing tower to the right of the lamppost, and a taller one for....electronics of some sort.
A prosperous-looking farm!
Sommarhagen (Summer Garden), the home of composer Wilhelm Peterson-Berger.
We wound our way up through the streets of Frösö, and got some shots eastward, toward Östersund.
And found ourselves at the foot of the ski hill we can see everytime we come across the bridge from Östersund on our way home. This is the bunny hill.
Somewhere to the far left, across the lake, is where our rental house is.
With a little effort, and VERY little help from the car's GPS, we found our way up to the viewing tower on the top of the island. It was, of course, closed for the winter.
But there were still some great views off to the mountains in the west, toward Åre ski area and Norway.
Åreskutan...the main ski hill at Åre, 100km away.
And a really spectacular house that must have all of the views shown above!!
