Glava: Hotels for Culture and Architectural History

Glava offers clearly defined points of interest for a stay: church art, local architectural history, and a walking and ski trail. Glava Church is an example of Baroque church architecture in Värmland and is also home to the Glava Madonna, a figure of the Virgin Mary carved from oak in the 13th century. Other highlights include the intricately patterned slate roofs of Glava Hembygdsgård and Källarsgården, a farmhouse dating from 1789. These different themes provide cultural and historical points of reference for your stay.

Church Art in Glava

The Glava Madonna brings together material, subject, and period: it is a figure of the Virgin Mary carved from oak in the 13th century. It is considered one of the finest examples of medieval art in Värmland. This gives the church an independent art-historical point of interest alongside its Baroque classification. The building and the figure represent different contexts: the Baroque description refers to the church’s architecture, while the wood, subject, and date characterize the Madonna. Those interested in sacred art can therefore appreciate architecture and medieval woodcarving as two distinct aspects of Glava Church.

Slate Roofs and a Farmhouse

At Glava Hembygdsgård, the roof design stands out as a distinctive architectural detail: the buildings have intricately patterned slate roofs, and the slate comes from the quarry in Glava. The material’s origin and the patterns go together here, making the source of the material visible as well as its design. Källarsgården offers a different emphasis. The old farmhouse in Glava dates from 1789. While the roofs combine design with locally sourced slate, Källarsgården provides a specific date and building type. This offers a comparison between the history of materials and dated rural architectural history for a culturally focused stay. The points of reference belong to different periods: the Madonna dates to the 13th century, Källarsgården bears the construction year 1789, and the church is an example of Baroque church architecture. You can thus distinguish medieval woodcarving, Baroque sacred architecture, and rural housebuilding as different cultural themes.

Walking and Ski Trail

A municipal route notice, updated on December 3, 2024, describes a 2.5 km walking and ski trail that starts 50 meters north of Glava Church and heads toward Glafsfjorden. Unlike the individual cultural sites, it is a route with a specified length and direction; it is designated for walking and skiing. If you want to balance culture and outdoor activity during your stay, the trail offers a different planning option from the church, Madonna, or historic buildings.

Glava Glasbruk in Arvika Municipality

Glava Glasbruk is a historic industrial settlement on Lake Stora Gla in Arvika Municipality. The Glava Glasbruk Museum offers insights into the history of the glassworks: at the beginning of the 20th century, it produced a large share of the window glass made in Sweden. Its industrial focus differs from church art and rural architectural history; here, the emphasis is on production and operations. A walk can be combined with insights into the former locations of the facility buildings and the scale of operations in the late 1930s. This brings two different time periods into focus: window-glass production at the beginning of the 20th century and the scale of operations in the late 1930s.

Discover more destinations: Glava Glasbruk, Gunnarskog, Arvika, Sulvik, Salungen, Ottebol, Jössefors, Edane

Go to the main travel overview: Arvika.