When we tour, sometimes the journey is a large chunk of the touring . Such was today as we headed out to the far eastern end of the Stockholm archipelago, to the small village of Sandhamn.
We checked out of our hotel in Stockholm and started walking to the ferry landing. The forecast had shown it was raining, and it was, but it was only a light sprinkle, and by the time we got to the boat, it had stopped raining. That was a huge blessing for us, since we wanted to sit outside on the boat (for two and a half hours) and walk (outside) all around Sandhamn.
The ferry is on a main street in Stockholm, and walking in, I had noticed that the police were blocking intersections onto the street. While we were waiting in the line for the boat, the traffic dried up on the road, and some police cars went slowly by. They were followed by fifty or so horses ridden by (presumably) soldiers in golden helmets and with drawn swords. They were followed by two horse-drawn carriages with some people in them, and then three black sedans, a large van full of soldiers, and then more police cars. I have no idea who or what this show was for, but it was clearly important and sure snarled up traffic.
On to the boat! Mer and I sat in the small open section of the back, and we got underway. The boat took us past several places we had been, but it also got us our best look at Grona Lund, the city’s amusement park (fun fact – the local people who live near the park get a subsidy to make up for the noise from the park). They’ve managed to squeeze four or five roller coasters onto a small plot of land, and even have a spinning ride floating on a barge.
We headed out into the not-really-open water as we started navigating the islands. There are 30,000 islands in the archipelago (counting even the tiny ones), but only 150 are inhabited year-round. It takes a long time to get to open water from Stockholm.
On the whole, the landscape reminded me strongly of the Maine coast. It’s rocky and forested in many places, but it still has differences. Here there are more mini-islands than Maine has, and a surprising number of them have a few houses built on them. The houses seem to be painted in cheerful colors, and, not surprisingly, many of them are really nice. There are also fewer pine trees here than along the Maine coast – still tons of trees, but fewer of them are pines.
And so we had a pleasant and scenic, if increasingly chilly, ride out to Sandhamn. The temperature dropped as we kept going east, and with the wind on the boat, it was cool (probably in the fifties).
Sandhamn is a very cute village. There are only about 450 homes in the village, and only about 50 of those have people who stay the winter. There are no cars and only one paved street (a hill is paved, probably to prevent erosion). People here do use four-wheelers and electric carts to move people and good in, but no cars. Most of the “roads” are really just large paths between houses. The houses are brightly painted, and there are lilacs everywhere, and they’re still in bloom. I’ve never seen anywhere with so many lilacs, which I love, since it’s my favorite flower.
We got off the boat and dumped our luggage at the hotel (our room wasn’t ready at 12:30), and we walked across the village to the local bakery, which is still only open Friday to Sunday; it opens every day once the school holidays start on June 15th. We ate lunch there, sitting outside, and then we wandered around the village. We found a large outcropping of rock overlooking the sea that used to have a windmill on it. We found the local beach and then the chapel on the island, which is on a rise of land with good sea views. We stopped to smell lilacs all over town, and took back lanes as we wanted until we ended back on the waterfront.
It was 2:30, so we checked into our room, and then went back out on the island. Across the island, about a mile away, is the other small settlement here. Back in the mid-twentieth century, a developer built a bunch of small cabins (about 170 square feet) so that middle-class people could have a summer cabin on the beach. We walked out to it. A few of the small cabins remain, but most of the places with sea views are no longer 170 square feet. We were the only ones on the beach – it’s on the Baltic Sea side of the island, and the breeze was quite strong, making for a cool day to be swimming, We sat and watched the sea for awhile, and then walked back to Sandhamn, going back a different way that was longer but wound more around houses. They were pretty nice with lots of large windows.
That got us back to town and our hotel. We swung by a local bar to order bar food, and then decided to call it an early night. We’ve been touring pretty hard for a week, so an early night is quite welcome. This is certainly a great place to slow down.