During my 2 weeks trip to Sweden and Finland, I saw two industrial World Heritage Sites, one is Ängelsberg Ironworks, and the other is the Great Copper Mountain in Falun. While Ängelsberg was so scenic with beautiful lake and forests, on the other hand, Falun really showed the result of heavy industry and pollution from copper mine. When my train approached the city of Falun, a part of inscribed area, I was surprised with the quietness of this city; there was no passenger apart of our group in the train station and nearby bus station! I took a bus to the Falun Mine; the bus route passed the city center which was quite pretty with some beautiful buildings and a lovely canal park.

The bus took us to the rear entrance of the mine; the first view of the mine, which was the oldest mining company in the world since 1288, was the very big wooden figure of Kåre goat, a legendary goat that found the copper ore, in the large area of red devastated land with spoil tips, totally not a place for casual tourists. After many spoil tips and my friend’s white shoes become red-brown shoes, I finally saw the Great Pit, and this huge red pit was pretty amazing sight. I walked along the rim of the Great Pit to see many mines’ wooden facility buildings painted in red color, or to exactly called Falun Red, a Swedish classic red color that found everywhere which originally made from Falun copper tailings. Unfortunately, that we had to cancel our idea to see the underground mine and decided to see the nearby Elsborg miner's village instead. The village was quite lovely with many blocks of red wooden buildings. From Elsborg I walked back to the city center to have late lunch before taking a train back to Stockholm.

After visited Falun, mining area was not a place that I preferred to see as the ruined landscape really made me depressed, and I had to admit that I did not enjoy mining environment at all, if I have to revisit Falun, I better to explore Elsborg and beautiful lake nearly. Nevertheless, Falun was a good place to see the source of Swedish prosperity; it is not beautiful or attractive, but interesting and its local sausage is quite good.