Sweden- Falu Koppargruva (coppermine)

 A little weekend to Falun with the family.
 
We enter Scandic Hotell with a 20 minute walk into the center, overlooking the ski jumping tower. We chose Scandic because they are usually good, have breakfast and this particular Scandic also has a gym and pool, so we would have a little more to do this trip.
 
We enter the entrance happy and are met by a real energy killer. A grumpy guy who you can barely hear what he's saying should check us in. We have booked 2 rooms for us all five, he places us at 5 floor intervals. We stand at the elevator a little quiet and think and then I go back to the "cheerful" guy and ask if it really was the best thing that could be arranged? We want to be as close to each other as possible. A little sighing, he fiddled with the computer and suddenly we had 2 rooms next to each other. The rooms were clean, nice and had what we needed.
 
We went for a walk and went down to the center and bought snacks for the evening. Perfect weather 😊
 
Back in the room, we looked forward to going down to the pool and exercise. We changed and went down to the basement. Once down, we stood a little surprised and watched the pool, where a dad sat on a stool and watched while his 4-year-old bathed. The pool was just as big and deep as a children's pool usually is, a little snoopy we went up again.
We got ready and went to a Japanese restaurant called Tairyo where everyone who worked used a mouth guard, which I appreciate, and we sit outside.

We took all five different dishes to try some varied Japanese food. It was nice and carefully laid out. The sushi was very good, Yakisoban: one with shrimp and the other with chicken was good but there was to much of noodles for my taste, could have been a little more vegetables. The Zaru soba menu was okay but the chef's choice of two small dishes where one was seaweed according to the wishes of my daughter who likes it a lot (which was good), but the chef's choice nr. 2 was plain pickled ginger which was very boring. Our youngest who likes Japanese culture a lot and also wants to learn the language wanted to try Ramen. It was beautiful to look at, but was not quite as she thought. It was a little bubbly and felt overcooked. The bamboo shoots were really sloppy, there was a completely raw egg in it and when I tasted it tasted like shrimp powder. However, I do not know how the dishes should taste or be, so don’t know if it was unfamiliar or if it was not the best cooking. But we have to try again elsewhere, so we can compare 😊
​
When we were about to leave, our youngest thanked for the food in Japanese to one of the waiters with the result that he became very quiet, and we thought… oh maybe it was wrong in the pronunciation after all. But then he said, "I’m Chinese!"

The rest of the evening we snuck into the room, watched movies and ate snacks. At midnight we went down to the gym and did a workout. The gym was really good.
In the morning, the girls and I went to the gym again and then got ready for breakfast and departure to the Falukoppar mine.
 
Unfortunately, the breakfast was a failure, our happy check-in guy the day before had given us breakfast time 9:45. Due to the corona, only a certain number of people are allowed to eat at a time, which is good. But he had not informed the kitchen, but when we arrived most of the food had been removed and the pancakes were dry as shoe soles.
 
The Falu copper mine has existed since the Viking Age and was in use until 1992. Lots of different minerals have been mined there, such as gold, copper, iron and more. During the 1600s, 1700s and 1800s, Falun was a wealthy city but not so healthy as the smoke from the thousands of huts that extracted minerals from the rocks was thick all over the city. The average life expectancy at that time was 40 years, but for the miners it was 30.

The mine is about 600 meters deep, but the last 200 meters are filled with water. Life as a miner was hard and many died. 15-year-old boys had to start by pulling away chopped stone, where each stretcher with stone was carried by two boys and could weigh up to 100 kg. When the boys proved that they were strong and enduring, they became finished miners who could start to break stone. It was a difficult process, where one meter could take a month. It was dirty and there were barrels on display in some parts of the corridors with water to drink, but according to our guide, the barrels were not so nice after a while when the snuff from everyone who drank ended up in the water.
 
The climate down there in the mine means that things do not rot. In 1719, a dead man was found down in the mine, they exhibited him in the square to see if anyone recognized the man. A woman recognized him, and it turned out that she had been engaged to him 42 years before when he suddenly disappeared in 1677. He is still called Fet-Mats (Fat-Mats)and at that time Fet meant that you were big and strong.
 
It was interesting to go down there as part of the time it is low ceilings and tight and then enter halls with high ceilings. Water dripping from the roof and a special smell.
I find it fascinating that you can do these excavations and that it does not collapse more often, but I also feel sad about how human abuse the earth.
I could not help but think of Tolkien and his "The Lord of the Rings" and the "Hobbit" books when we was walking in certain places in the tunnels. Can we dig too deep?
 
Then it was off home with a break in Uppsala where the boys ate at Max and girls ate Chopchop 😊