Røros

For some surprising reason, the sleepy former mining town of Røros gets 1 Mio visitors each year. When I came, the main road was busy and the parking lot full with caravans and cars. The main street is lined with cafes and shops, as in every other tourist town.

The obvious comparison is with Falun, another mining town in Scandinavia. Falun features a big hole and that is the striking feature of the mine. Røros, meanwhile, is more about the town around the mine, so I think these two sites are distinct. All the colorful wooden houses reminded me more of Rauma than Falun. And I enjoyed my visit significantly more than visiting yet another central European mining town.

The dominating features of the town are the church, the smelting house, the poor worker cottages and the slag heap. The smelting house now houses the Roros museum and is the starting point of guided tours. I would discourage visiting the museum, though, as only one room has been kept in an original state. All other rooms have been repurposed for the exhibition.

Best part to me was just wandering the small streets.

Getting There

As pointed out by Els, the easiest option is to do a day trip from Trondheim. Train leaves Trondheim main station around 9:30 and arrives in Røros at 12:15h. Return trip is at 15:30 or 16:30 depending on the weekday. Be sure to check the schedule for the precise day you …

This is another in Norway's collection of slightly oddball World Heritage Sites. It reminded us both of the Copper Mining Town at Falun in Sweden, just across the border (though admittedly Falun was far more developed). It was a surprisingly popular spot for Norwegian tourists, lots of them around enjoying the mid-summer sunshine. Not many internationals though, still too far off the beaten path I guess. My favourite part was the well-preserved old wooden houses in Slag Road, where people lived quite literally in the shadow of the slag heaps. The large "smelting building" is actually a 1980s reconstruction, though admittedly quite well done.

Røros wasn’t really what I expected it to be. While preparing for my short visit to this former copper mining town, I discovered that it sees one million visitors yearly. And indeed: upon arrival, it resembled one large parking lot. I also had imagined a mountainous setting, showing the “harsh climatic conditions” the inhabitants had to deal with that form part of its OUV. At an altitude of 628m, it’s not that extreme. Although it does get pretty cold in the wintertime at this latitude of course.

I reached Røros by train from Trondheim: there is only one practical departure that allows you to visit it on a day trip (leaving at 9.45, and returning at 16.30). Try to sit on the right side of the train, as it has the best views of rivers and lakes which are part of the so-called Circumference (the allotted area of privilege to the Røros Copper Works). From the train station, I walked straight to the outskirts of the city, where the Røros Museum is located at the site of the old smelting house. Daily at 1 p.m., an English-language walking tour of the town starts from here. The museum area is the most industrial part that you’ll see in the city by the way: the actual mines are miles away and not reachable by public transport.

The tour led me and about 10 other tourists first to where the poorest people lived - near the smelting house and the slag …

Røros in October 2016, shot with a drone (see link).

Røros Mining Town and the Circumference is linked to the copper mines, established in the 17th century and exploited for 333 years until 1977. The site comprises the Town and its industrial-rural cultural landscapes; Femundshytta, a smelter with its associated area; and the Winter Transport Route. Completely rebuilt after its destruction by Swedish troops in 1679, Røros contains about 2000 wooden one- and two-storey houses and a smelting house. Many of these buildings have preserved their blackened wooden façades, giving the town a medieval appearance. Surrounded by a buffer zone, coincident with the area of privileges (the Circumference) granted to the mining enterprise by the Danish-Norwegian Crown (1646), the property illustrates the establishment and flourishing of a lasting culture based on copper mining in a remote region with a harsh climate.

I visited Roros on a day trip by train from Trondheim. The train journey involved a steep climb, with a substantial drop in temperature, even in August.

The town was compact enough to visit all the significant features like the smelting area, slag heaps and workers' cottages on foot, interspersed with visits to the several hot soup kitchens available.

The construction of the houses was of great interest to me, with the walls made from rough hewn logs with interlocking joints at the corners and grass growing in a layer of topsoil on top of the shingle roofs.