Scandinavia

Last night we had a better sleep on our inflatable bed than the night before on the sofa-bed. Outside, the sky was heavily clouded and looked very threatening and after a while it started to rain. What a difference compared to yesterday. For the first time since long we put on our long trousers. After breakfast we left to discover more of the surroundings. First we went to a bearpark just north of Orsa, which closed down in 2022. In this park they kept bears, wolves, lynx, polar foxes and a wolverine in a more natural environment than an ordinary zoo. Supplied with some umbrellas we entered the park, it was still raining. First we went to see the bears, the have a number of large enclosures to live. In one of these enclosures the younger bears are living and in another one the more mature bears are living. There is also a smaller enclosure in which a mother bear and two cubs are staying. Those cubs were born at the end of 2002. The cubs were playing with each other all of the time. Luckily it had stopped raining. While we were watching the bears they were fed. They got bread, apples and some power-fodder. From the bears we went to see the wolves, they had also just been fed. The wolves also live in a rather large enclosure. The other animals are endowed with a smaller one, but they are also a lot smaller themselves. There was only one wolverine, a female. But we didn't see her. In summer, the polar foxes have a dark fur. In wintertime it will turn white as snow. The whole park is situated on one side of a hill, which means that you have to climb a steep path to see everything. In the park there are a number of vantage points from which you have a good view over the enclosures and you may make pictures there without a fence in between you and the animals. On top of the hill there is a restaurant in which we had some refreshments. After lunch we walked back down again to have a look at the lynx, although they weren't good to see as they hide in the grass, so we only saw them from a distance. All in all it is a very interesting park in which you see the animals in a more natural environment and you won't see them walking up and down a steel cage as in most zoos. This park is definitely worth a visit. We stayed in total for about three hours in the park before we left for the Tourist Office in Orsa to check what else we could visit. They advised us to go to the Gammelgård in Våmhus. This is an open-air museum with some old handicrafts. But there was only a basket maker and a lady busy with pillow lace making using human hair. The produced threads are used to make ornaments, brooches and wall decorations. In early days the poorest people, that didn't have money to buy yarn, practised this craft and they used their own hair for it. From the Gammelgård we drove around lake Orsa to Mora and back to our cottage. On the way we did some shopping.