Every design for Åre

In western Jämtland, wedged between Åresjön and the mountain Åreskutan rising 1,420 metres above sea level, lies the village that became Sweden's largest winter sports resort. Long before the lifts came, the Åre valley was a thoroughfare — medieval pilgrims walked the Nidaros ways here to and from Norway, and later came the summer visitors who came for the air.

The Mittbanan railway changed everything, and step by step the farming village grew into what people called a Swedish Davos. Today Åre gamla kyrka and Totthummeln share the place with pistes, mountain bike trails and the drawn-out hum you hear along Zipline Black. The resort has staged three alpine world championships — the only ones in Sweden.

Up on Åreskutan the traces of all this are visible at once: pilgrim history, railway dream and a mountain sport that still draws people here. It is exactly that mixture that makes Åre worth keeping close, drawn in map lines across the chest.