There does not seem to be enough time in the day to keep up with posts.  Since the last entry we have been busy exploring. We’ve had warm and sun and cold and snow. Today was -11C, though not too bad when one is appropriately dressed. There are lots of snow ploughs clearing the roads, but lots of icy spots still, so one has to take care walking.

A few days ago I walked round the coast enjoying the changing views, past the power station, and found what looked like some sort of religious retreat, with various buildings, open air chapels and statuary.

Since the sun sets before 3PM, it is not hard to get lots of sunset views.  That soft, warm light that lasts for just a few minutes at sunset in Melbourne summers … here it lasts hours. At midday the sun is barely a hand’s-width above the horizon (with the arm at full stretch, that is).

On Saturday we headed to a nearby town, Sala, where they have an old silver mine with an interesting museum, and there was a market. It was snowing most of the time, so the market stall goods were liberally sprinkled with white.It was a bit hard to see some of the wares.

Four days ago we visited Anundshog, in the sunshine. Two days ago we visited in snow. Quite a difference. However it was challenging to get photos when the snow is blowing horizontally some of the time, without getting snow on the lens, and with gloves to protect the digits from the cold.

Managed to get a mention in the local paper!

A couple of days ago, as I walked through town I was stopped by a couple of guys who enquired what I was planning to do for Lucia, and snapped my photo. I turned up as a head in the local newspaper.

One of the local celebrations at Christmas is the festival of Santa Lucia. We went to the local cathedral (Domkyrkan) for their celebration. Lots of well done choral work and fair maidens wandering around with candles on their heads. Lots of fun.

Tomorrow we head off to Rome for a week or so, so I’ll post more in a few days once we have seen a few sights.

As usual there are more photos in the gallery for Vasteras that I made, just scroll down to find the new ones. Clicking the thumbnails brings up full-page versions as usual for google galleries. https://goo.gl/photos/yX21ne76vG6MUR6t7