SWEDISH SOJOURN, Day 8, June 27

Today was a day filled with adventures, covering Klasatorpet, Kosta Boda, the Gronasiens Elk Park, Orrefors, and the Kalmar Castle. We traveled the "Emigrant Trail" to Langasjo to tour the living museum of Klasatorpet, where parts of the film "The Emigrants" were made. Klasatorpet is a Smaland cottage from the 1800s, which since 1969 has been a summer house museum. At the filming of "The Emigrants" in 1969, the cottage was the abode of the main characters. It was built in the early 1800s and was named after Per Klase, who lived here for some time. After him, it was inhabited by several different families. Klasatorpet is operated by the Langasjo Local History Society, which owns the buildings and adjacent lands, which they bought from the church. The intention is to preserve the cottage environment and cultivate the land as it looked in the early 1800s. About 1.3 million Swedes migrated from Sweden to the US between 1846 and 1930, of which about 1200 people came from Langasjo and some from Klasatorpet. Smaland had the largest emigration quota of all the Swedish provinces. Approximately half of the Langasjo parish residents emigrated. Before filming "The Emigrants," there was a search for an authentic cottage environment, and Klasatorpet was selected. Today, Klasatorpet looks just like it did during the filming. Not only did we see the buildings: there are all kinds of animals living in the farm setting as well--pigs, horses, and rabbits for instance, and there is a garden which grows all kinds of plants and flowers, such as lambs' ears. A fascinating place! Our stop after Klasatorpet was the Glass Kingdom, where we toured two different glass companies--Kosta Boda and Orrefors. Glassmaking in Sweden was pioneered by King Gustav Vasa, who had been impressed during his travels by Italian glass work. It was Smaland's forests that provided the vast amounts of fuel needed to feed the furnaces, and so a glass factory was set up in the province in 1742. Called Kosta after its founders, it is still the largest glassworks in Smaland today. All of the 14 glassworks still in operation in Smaland give glassblowing demonstrations. Several have permanent exhibitions of contemporary glass work or pieces from their history, and all have a shop. Two of Kosta Boda's most famous and hyped designers, Bertil Vallien (the creator of that amazing triptych we saw at the Vaxjo cathedral), and other designers of that caliber, for instance Gorsn Warff, have pieces on show. We even got to watch the glassmaking process, as glass plugs were fished out of a shimmering molten lake at 1200 degrees Celcius and then turned and blown into a graphite or steel mold. With wine glasses, a foot is added during the few seconds when the temperature is just right. If the glass is too hot, the would-be stem will slide off or sink right through. If the glass is too cold, it will not stick. The piece is then annealed--heated and then slowly cooled-- for several hours. It takes years to become a glassmaking apprentice. After watching the process, I decided to go to the Kosta Boda store to see if I could afford anything. I looked at a 2-sided face by Bertil Vallien that really appealed to me, but decided instead on a Dala horse with yellow and blue interior captured in clear glass. it was a lovely piece, and will look superb on my desk at home. Later on, at Orrefors, I looked again for something, but nothing matched the current Orrefors pieces I have. I did find a bracelet that appealed to me, but decided in the end to forego it. Right before boarding the bus for our next venue, I decided to have lunch with Jenny. She and I split a sandwich as well as a pastry (a Swedish version of a honey bun, without all the stickiness, as described by Jenny), topped by a great cup of Gevalia coffee. Between the Kosts Boda and the Orrefors plants, we went to visit the Gronasiens Elk Park. It is a show park with live moose, comprised of more than 6 hectares of woodland and a show enclosure of 6000 square meters. During opening hours, the moose are always in the show enclosure. A real character, the owner and caretaker, speaking in German with me translating, showed us around and teased the moose towards the enclosure where we were standing. A short walk through the woods completed the outing, and we were off to Orrefors. Originally, we were going to Kalmar Castle tomorrow, but they were not going to be able to tour us then, so we went today instead. Kalmar is set on a huddle of islands at the SE edge of Smaland province. It is considered to have enough treasures to make it one of S Sweden's most delightful towns. It has an exquisite 14th c. castle, Scandinavia's finest preserved Renaisance palace. Beautifully situated on its own island just S of the city park, its foundations were probably laid in the 12th c.; a century later it became the best defended castle in Sweden. Unlike many other southern Swedish castles, this one is straight out of a storybook, boasting turrets, ramparts, a moat and a drawbridge, as well as a dungeon. In its time, the castle has been used as a prison and as a storage facility for salt and grain. Today it is one of Sweden's best preserved Renaissance castles. One interesting thing about its history is that one of the Swedish kings who lived here, Gustav Vasa, had two sons, Johan and Eric, who followed him and had a large part in decorating the interior. They were not the closest, as Eric suffered paranoia and believed that he was being poisoned by his brother. Also interesting was the fact that Eric was a candidate for marriage to England's Queen Elizabeth I. We toured the castle extensively for an hour, and then made our way by bus to our hotel for the evening--the Stufvenas Wardshus. It is on the shores of the Baltic Sea and is situated in an old mansion. The hotel is between Kalmar and Karlskrona. We had one of our choicest dinners of the evening--a small pate de foie gras; a gazpacho with shrimp; veal and a potato cake, and finally, cold strawberry soup for dessert, followed by coffee. All wonderful. One couple in our group was celebrating their 42nd anniversary this evening, and I brought out my black currant juice for celebration, but was roundly chastised by Agneta, our guide, as having committed a grave faux pas. At first I was incensed and very hurt by the humiliation, but decided to not let it ruin my evening. Now everyone has gone to their separate rooms, and I alone am writing this as the sun sets in a blaze of glory. Tomorrow a somewhat lighter day, and we don't get started until 9:00. A reprieve! As ever, Sylvia