We carried on the trend from yesterday and had a slow and lazy morning. We lazed in bed for a while and then had a slow breakfast and packed up our stuff. We did not leave until 11:30 AM. From here we made our way towards Røros, which we had visited in June. We did not have enough time to fully explore the place then, so we wanted to come back for a second visit. When we arrive at Røros, we do not enter the town, but rather head out east towards the Olav Mine.
The Olav Mine is a relatively new attraction, having only been opened to the public as a museum in 1979. The mine museum comprises the very old Nyberget Mine and the Crownprince Olav Mine. After production in the mine ceased, the owners were going to stop pumping and let the mine flood to avoid unnecessary expenses, but an initiative was undertaken to save it and turn it into a museum. It is a great place to visit.
We arrive just in time to join one of the regular tours and put on our walking shoes (due to the cold and the mud). After putting on our hardhats, we spend the next hour or so wandering through the old and new mines. The differences between them can be clearly seen. The old mine was largely dug through fire setting, where huge bonfires were lit against the rock wall, resulting in the cracking of the hard rock. The new mine employed drilling and other modern techniques.
There are some amazing huge chambers that have been opened up, with the roof being supported by natural rock columns held in place. There are lots of small passageways, some of which are filled with water. We come upon one of the ore collection chutes and it uses anchor chain that was recovered from the sunken World War II German battleship Tirpitz.
There are also some areas of the mine with exotic colorings from the many minerals in the rock. The most striking is the deep cobalt blue. We exit the mine from the same way we came in and re-emerge into the hot, sunny day. We are glad that we have worn our boots - the mud is very thick and sticky. It is very hard to remove.
From the mine, we head back to Røros itself to take a look around. Once we arrive in town, we find a place to park our car and the first priority is to get some food. We decide to head back to the same cafe that we had spotted o our first time and check it out for lunch. We order a few pastries and some drinks and then out to the cool courtyard to sit back and enjoy our meal. It is so nice out there, that we drag out lunch longer than normal. We also get our dessert and savor it here. We get soft ice, which is dressed with cloudberries. Delicious.
We then spend some time wandering around the old, well preserved streets of this UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a great place to just walk around, do some shopping and just take in the old buildings. In addition to the upper class streets, we return to the street where the poor workers used to live.
This workers street is actually the most impressive of them all. The lane is narrow and the buildings are small, but they have so much charm. It is fantastic that they are so well preserved. In fact, they continue to do restoration work and we could go inside some of the buildings and check out what they are doing.
At around 4:30 PM we decide to head on. We are in no real rush to go anywhere, so we decide to just drive for an hour or so and see what kind of a campsite we can find to stay the night. Well, it is almost exactly an hour later that we come upon a nice, pleasant spot along the river. The price is right fro a very comfortable cabin, so we check-in. As it is only shortly after 5 PM, we have time to take care of some chores, so we decide to do our laundry (another reason we choose this place - it has a washing machine).
Other than that, we hang out, do some reading, have a drink on the porch and have our home cooked dinner. It is nice to have slowed down our pace a bit.