Destination: Mid Sweden
SUNDSVALL
Sundsvall is the central city in Sweden's Medelpad landscape. With 50,000 people, the city is the 21st largest in Sweden.
Sundsvall was originally a fishing village established in 1624 with a total population of 300 inhabitants and was the fastest growing city after Gothenburg. During the 1800s, Sundsvall was one of Sweden's richest cities thanks to the sawmills.
After the 1888 Sundsvall Fire, which burned down the entire city, a new ordinance required that all new buildings be constructed with stone. Hence the nickname “the stone city.”
Sundsvall has many well-known athletes; the soccer team boasted the great Tomas Brolin of GIF Sundsvall. Other athletes from, or connected to, Sundsvall include: Anna-Karin Kammerling - swimming, Fredrik Nyberg – alpine, Vladimir Smirnov – skiing, Magdalena Forsberg – biathlon, Henrik
Zetterberg – ice hockey, and many more...
In 2007, Sundsvall was trademarked as “the Capital of Norrland” (northern Sweden).
More: www.sundsvall.se
ÅRE
The town of Åre is a ski resort in the western part of the Jämtland province. Since the early 1900s, Åre has been a popular Swedish ski resort and today has a population of about 1,200.
Tourists first started coming to Åre in the middle of 17th century for “better health” and to breath the fresh mountain air. There were no hotels or any tourist activity at the time, so visitors bunked with the locals.
In 1882 the railway was built through Åre which opened the town to the booming tourist trade. Locals started building hotels and cabins. But the tourists only came for summer hiking and fishing.
In 1910 a gondola was built from the town center to the top of the mountain and in 1940 the first ski-lifts were built, which started to attract winter tourists. Since that time several World Cup ski events have
been held in Åre. The World Championship of skiing was held in Åre in 1954 and again in 2007.
In recent years mountain biking has become a popular summer activity and in 2005 the Åre Bike Park was inaugurated. Åre runs 4 lifts from late June until September and has 24 trails with varying levels of difficulty and a total of 40 km of trails.
More info: www.are360.se
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