Åland - The Åland Islands
The Ferry to Åland
On board ‘Viking Grace’, waiting to leave Stockholm
I was expecting it to be a fairly small ferry, but Finland-based Viking Line use their new hybrid car ferry Viking Grace on the daily service between Sweden and Finland. Viking Grace was built in Turku, Finland and is a state of the art car ferry that runs on both diesel and liquified natural gas (LNG). It will soon be the first hybrids vessel that also utilises wind for propulsion, when it has been fitted with a rotor sail.
The Swedish Archipelago
It was a very sedate crossing as we sailed slowly for almost 5 hours around at least a hundred of the islands that form the Stockholm archipelago. Åland is an another group of islands in the Baltic Sea that lie between Sweden and Finland. It was overcast when we left Sweden but the clouds cleared as we travelled East.
Just a few of the 24,000 Stockholm archipelago islands.
Some of the islands are quite large and and are inhabited throughout the year, some have just one holiday home or are uninhabited, and some are no more than rocks.
As usual Lucy made sure that she had a window seat.
The Baltic Sea
The only entrance to the Baltic Sea is south of Norway between Denmark and Sweden. I wrote more about it in the Sweden and Denmark sections of the blog when Lucy and I cycled along the Kattegattleden, the cycle path between Helsingborg and Gothenburg (West coast of Sweden) in 2017.
www.lucysgrandvikingtour.blogspot.com
As the entrance to the Baltic is so narrow it doesn’t have any significant tides. The total tidal effect is about 2 cms. It is also one of the world’s largest bodies of brackish water (a mixture of salt and fresh water). The Baltic Sea is a mixture of salt water from the N. Atlantic and fresh water from the rivers and streams that drain into it and it is only slightly salty.
While I was on board I chatted to Maria, a Danish woman from Copenhagen whose parents live in Finland. She was on her way to Turku and speaks fluent English and Finnish. She told me a lot about Finland and the language, and suggested things that I should do when I get to Helsinki later in the week, She also taught me some useful Finnish words eg. kiitos - thank you (pronounced keetos with a soft k half way between k and g). A lot of people think that Finish is similar to Russian but Russian belongs to the Indo-European group of languages, while Finnish is a Finno-Ugric language with the same roots as Estonian and Hungarian. Maria said that Finnish has 16 different cases and no separate pronouns. Pronouns are added to the verb or noun in sentences.
A scooter in Oslo left in the middle of the pavement, sometimes they are several of them lying down
I asked Maria about the scooter hire scheme. She said that it took-off about a year ago, and like me she initially thought that it was a good idea. But there have been some problems with their use in Copenhagen, and I had noticed similar things in Norway and Sweden. Mainly that people leave them anywhere, often blocking pavements so you are in danger of tripping over them. They are also very fast, faster than the bikes on the cycle paths and they sometimes cut in front of you when you are walking. Apparently there have been quite a few accidents in Copenhagen and I said that it means people are using them instead of cycling, so they are gettting less exercise. At that point she said that she sounds like a moaning old person, set in her ways. I laughed as she can’t be 30 yet. Most people use them responsibly, but there seem to be a significant minority who don’t. So a great idea, but they need to sort out a few problems.
Arriving in Åland
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky when we arrived in Mariehamn the capital of Åland and it stayed hot for most of the time we were there. Åland, pronounced Or-land, is an archipelago of appropriately 6,700 islands. They are sometimes referred to as the Åland Islands but usually just Årland. It is an autonomous region of Finland, with its own flag and Parliament. Like Greenland and the Faroes a lot of people want complete independence. Interestingly, the language spoken is Swedish, the currency is the Euro and it has its own web suffix dot ax. The Finnish name for Åland is Ahvenanmaa, but this is never used on the islands as Swedish is the only language spoken. Åland is also a demilitarised zone.
The Åland flag was flying as the ferry approached Mariehamn
The Åland Islands command a strategic position in the Baltic Sea between Russia and the West, and for many centuries they were caught up in wars between Sweden and Russia. In 1809 Finland and Ãland were conquered by Russia and the islands became a border zone with the West. With the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, Finland gained independence and ownership of the Islands. Åland gained autonomy in 1921 and joined the EU in 1995.
The first thing that struck me when I got off the boat was how many trees there were. It was less than a kilometre to walk to the hotel and most of the way was through this avenue of linden trees, planted in 1859 when Mariehamn was developed and rebuilt after war damage from years of conflict. What is now referred to as the old town, built in the mid-1800s, was laid out on a grid with some very fine wooden buildings.
Ann’s Birthday
Tuesday 19th June 2019
It is hard to believe that Ann would have been 64 today, to me she will always be in her mid-fifties. I spent the day exploring Mariehamn doing some of the things she would have enjoyed, including a buffet lunch at Hotel Pommern. This consisted of soup, a large salad buffet, a main meal and coffee all for €12,50. As in many parts of Scandinavia, lunch menus are very good value and there were a lot of Åland workers eating in the hotel during their lunch break. A comparable evening meal at the same hotel would cost in the region of €35.
Mariehamn is on a peninsula at the south of the archipelago and during the afternoon I walked around the much newer shopping streets and went to the excellent Kulturhistoriska, culture and history museum, to learn more about the region. There is also a little art gallery at the museum displaying works by Åland artists.
This was one of my favourites ..............
but Lucy preferred the ceramic figures of sculptor Kim Simonsson
The special exhibition was a celebration of 100 years of Sport in Åland to mark 100 years of Åland Ligaguld, the football league on the islands.
The poster advertising the Sport’s exhibition at Kulturhistoriska
I finished the day by sitting in the bar and raising a glass to Ann.
Lucy had a gin and elderflower liqueur, remembered Ann and wished her a Happy Birthday.
Although I think Ann would have preferred one, or both, of the Finnish beers that Lucy bought yesterday.
Parks, Boats, Birdys and Churches
Wednesday 19th June 2019
I walked to the other side of the peninsula through Badhusparken, a beautiful park planted with seeds imported from Central Europe in the 19th century and Lucy learnt a new game, DiscGolf. It is played on what looks like a golf course but you throw discs from the tee into baskets.
Åland Sjöfarts Museum - Shipping Museum
While Lucy was playing DiscGolf I went to the Sjöfarts museum to find out more about the maritime history of the islands and to look at SMS Pommern an iron-hulled sailing ship, built in Glasgow in 1903. It was acquired by Gustaf Erickson of Mariehamn and used to carry grain from Australia to England and Ireland until 1939.
The Pommern is now a museum ship moored behind the Sjöfarts Museum
Later I caught up with Lucy in the museum
I was interested to read that women served on board Åland ships and Mimmi Widbom, one of the female sailors rounded Cape Horn eight times, more than most of her fellow sailors.
Mimmi Widbom a female sailor aboard a ship in the early 1900s
When I left the Museum I chatted to a couple from Hamburg who are cycle touring on a Brompton and a Birdy.
I have still got an early Brompton that I bought in 1995, but have sold my special edition Birdy, manufactured in 2000 for the Millennium.
S:T Görans Kyrka
I walked along the avenue of trees on my way back to the hotel and don’t know how I missed S:t Görans Kyrka when I arrived in Mariehamn. Luckily it was open so I was able to go inside. It is beautiful. It was completed in 1927 and is shaped like a boat inside. The altar is also boat-shaped.
As usual Lucy left her mark in the visitor’s book, but have no idea why she thinks she comes from Denmark.
Another change of plan
Thursday 20th June 2019
My original plan was to spend another day in Mariehamn and catch the overnight ferry to Helsinki. But as I had enjoyed the daytime crossing so much, I decided that it was too nice to sleep through the next one. I contacted Viking Ferries and they allowed me to change my booking and refunded the cost of the cabin. So I boarded Viking Grace again for the afternoon crossing to Turku in Finland.
So Finland here we come!
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