Where to Stay in Falun, Dalarna County

Copper made Falun. The great mine of Stora Kopparberg produced ore for centuries and at its height supplied much of Europe, funding the Swedish crown through war and peace alike. From its slag came Falu red, the iron-rich paint that turned timber cottages across the country a deep rust colour.

That pit, the Falu koppargruva, is a World Heritage Site. Lugnet draws skiers and athletes the rest of the year.

The Falu koppargruva, with its vast open collapse pit and the Gruvmuseet at the surface, anchors the city's World Heritage standing. Kristine kyrka rises over the square, while Stora Kopparbergs kyrka guards the old mining hill from a higher seat. Lugnet's ski jumps tower above town.

The wooden quarters of Elsborg preserve miners' cottages painted in the famous red. Falu fängelse and Dalarnas idrottsmuseum round out the rest.

Falun's history is the history of its mine. Copper was being dug from the hill of Stora Kopparberg as early as the medieval period, and by the seventeenth century the works had become the most important industrial enterprise in the kingdom, employing thousands and bankrolling Sweden's wars. The town grew around the pit.

Disaster and decline followed glory. A massive cave-in late in the seventeenth century opened the great pit that still scars the hill, and over the following centuries output slowly fell until mining at last came to an end. The city turned to administration, learning, and sport.

The pit endures as a monument to the trade that made it.

Falun lies in the eastern part of Dalarna County in central Sweden, set where the Faluån river runs down into Lake Runn. Wooded hills rise close around the town, and the old mining ground lifts to the west above the valley floor. Lakes, forest, and low ridges spread out in every direction beyond the streets, with the city of Borlänge a short way off to the south-west and the open uplands of Dalarna stretching well beyond.

The terrain is broken and green. Water is never far.

Falun has a humid continental climate, set well inland in central Sweden. Winters are long and cold, with reliable snow that turns the surrounding hills into ski country from December into March, and Lake Runn freezing hard enough to cross. Summers are mild and green.

Long northern evenings stretch the daylight far past nine around midsummer, when dusk barely settles before the early dawn. Spring and autumn are brief.

Falun sits on a branch of the Dalarna rail network, with regional trains linking it to Borlänge and on toward Stockholm and the rest of the county. Connections often run through the junction at Borlänge nearby. Dala Airport, west toward Borlänge, handles the region's limited air traffic.

The roads are the mainstay. Main highways carry traffic in from the south and west, and regional buses thread out across the hills to the smaller towns around.