We round off our Road Trip with an extra-everything weekend at Gimo manor

After the visit to Axmar Mill which you can read about here the tour continued southwards with some more mills, this time Gimo Manor and Lövstabruk.

Gimo manor house

Gimo is hardly an industrial environment today, but the focus is on Gimo manor house which is open to conference guests and tourists who want to escape everyday life for a while. The mill dates back to 1615, when it was established as a crown mill, but the manor house itself was only built in the 1760s. Before that, there was a much more modest manor building inhabited by the mill's inspector.

Like so many other ironworks in the region, the de Geer family had a hand in Gimo. The industrialist Louis de Geer first leased the mill but bought it in 1643 and developed the ironworks with the help of immigrant Walloons. The Walloons were experts in iron processing and, combined with the high quality of Swedish iron ore, the Swedish Walloon ironworks became a world leader. The mill remained in the family for five generations, although the de Geer family is said to have never lived here. In later years, the manor has had a number of different owners and between 1935 and 1985 the manor was actually owned by the Moderate Party, which used it as its training centre.

Enough of the story, we were here to eat and drink well. We had booked a weekend package with Afternoon Tea, bubbles and chocolates in the room, spa and a four-course dinner. We were lucky with the weather and could therefore start our stay with Afternoon Tea on the mansion's terrace. Since we had not had time for lunch this day, I asked at the check-in a little cautiously if we would need a support sandwich to not starve to death for dinner but was assured that this would not be the case. A while later we were sitting out on the terrace and as you can see in the picture we were fine. I managed without a support sandwich. 🙂 It was really a well-sized and good afternoon coffee.

Full and satisfied, we walked down to Sjöstugans spa, a rather simple but nice spa a short walk from the mansion. It is located right down by Lake Gimo and after a sauna or hot bubble bath, you can take a dip, even in winter when there is an ice bath for the brave. At this time of year, it was quite nice to jump into the lake after sitting in a hot whirlpool.

The evening ended in the best way with a good dinner served in the mansion's beautiful dining room. The guy who served us had worked at a vineyard in the Palatinate where we were as late as last spring during our cycling trip in the Moselle Valley, which you can read about. here. It was therefore a nice chat about travel memories and good wines. We were offered Toast Skagen and Caprese with Burrata for starters, veal fillet for the main course and cheesecake for dessert. To finish, we had a cheese plate with local cheeses, all matched with good wines. One could possibly argue that it is too steady with both cheesecake and cheeses after the meal and I might not have chosen that combination if I put together the menu myself, but it was really good. We were bursting with satiety and we saw that many of the other guests chose to take the cheese tray back to the room to eat it later. That would probably have been a wise choice, but we munched away and then wandered off for a walk in the warm summer evening.

All in all, we had a very nice weekend at Gimo Manor with good food and beautiful surroundings. We are happy to go here again.

Lövstabruk manor house

On the way to Gimo, we first passed Forsmark, which has not only a nuclear power plant but also a mill environment with a beautiful manor house, and then came to Gimo. Lövstabruk. Here we stopped for a short leg stretch. Unfortunately, the mansion closes for visitors already at 15 in the afternoon so we missed the chance to go in and look. A tip is to come here a little earlier in the day, judging by the outside of the mansion and the photos I have seen on the inside, it is really worth a visit.

Like Gimo, Lövstabruk is largely the work of Louis de Geer, who leased and later bought both mills at about the same time. Lövstabruk's history goes all the way back to the Middle Ages, but it was only when de Geer took over and developed the mill that it really flourished. The mill as it looks today, however, is of a somewhat more recent design as most of the buildings, including the manor house, were burned down during the Russian ravages of 1719. In just a few years, everything was rebuilt, largely according to the old plan that was originally used. Unfortunately, there are no industrial buildings left as they were demolished when the ironworks closed in the 1920s, but the workers' housing, the church and the administrator's house remain. If you are hungry or just want a coffee, there is also an inn and an ice cream parlour.

Full of use, it was now time to return home. As always, we wished there was more time to stop and look at things. For example, I would have liked to spend more time at Lövstabruk, but also at Forsmark, which we just passed by. It will be on the next trip simply.