Sweden vacation - Jun 21 (day 9) - Part 1

I have to split this day into 2 posts because there are sooooo many photos!  This was the first our our touristy days, where we visited the glass-blowing region of Sweden, also known as Småland.

Our first stop was Kosta Boda, where they make fine crystal.  This was a VERY cool thing to see...

I think the best way to describe this is to look at the videos. What’s incredible about this to me, besides the beautiful art that they’re creating, is their safety gear (or lack of, I guess :) That and there’s NO WAY you could get this close to an operation like this in America. I mean, I gotta admit that I was a bit nervous walking around with all of these roaring furnaces, especially when you had to get close enough to scoot through and you could feel the heat. NERVEWRACKING for me :)

Ok, the first stop we made was sort of a “mass production” area. today they were making wine glasses. The first video shows how it goes from a hot plug from the furnace to a beautifully shaped goblet and stem.

This video shows how they attach the bottom to the stem of the goblet. So. Cool.

Here are some photos that show it as well…

Not quite sure what happened here :)

Here are the roaring furnaces I mentioned …

 

This guy is using air to quickly cool the glass

 

This is what the glass looks like after it’s been cut while hot and discarded.

 

And here’s a cool piece of art that was hanging in the factory

 

After the factory tour, we went to the glass museum there to see a lot of other glass designs and this was one of them…the red face is all done with etching and paint.

 
After the glass museum, we went shopping at an outlet there because Izzy needed a jacket. Now THIS is how to do outlets (listen AMERICA!!!). There is one building, two floors, and the stores sell their merchandise in the same area, with one set of checkout lines that they share. It’s FRICKIN’ GENIUS!!! Here’s Izzy and farfar entertaining themselves while we shopped. Notice the look on Izzy’s face….farfar just told her we have to go :) She’s got that face down pat.

 
After Kosta Boda, we went to Målerås to visit a glasshouse there. There wasn’t a factory that we could walk through..we went there for what they made. I was interested in the jewelry, and got myself a BEAUTIFUL purple/silver glass ring. And surprisingly, Joacim also bought himself a couple of things…a necklace and a ring with a Norseman on it. VERY COOL!

 
And here’s Joacim re-enacting an old movie :)

 
Gotta continue the rest of this in another entry...