Blogs from Mariehamn, Åland Islands, Finland, Europe

Of the four large island groups sitting offshore eastern Sweden, the autonomous Aland islands could be considered the cinderella one with less travel and sight seeing kudos. Further south in the Baltic, we visited Gotland in 2021 enjoying the islands’ deep heritage represented by the well preserved Medieval walled Hanseatic city of Visby, a landscape dotted by defunct windmills, thatched huts, forlorn looking maypoles, viking ship burials and a flat, almost Mediterranean landscape of scrubby trees. Gotland is also geologically distinct from the rest of Sweden; the coastline is marked by dramatic Rauks - marooned rugged sea stacks which were the remanent cores of 400 million year old coral reefs. It was interesting to see these striking features that resemble natural turrets, feature on the new Swedish 200 krona bank note. In April, we were massively ... read more

A short blog to inform you about the 3 most boring days at the Alands. The Åland Islands form an archipelago in the Baltic Sea. It is the largest island in an archipelago of near 6,500 others, most just small uninhabited rocks and though an autonomous, self-governed territory of Finland, the Aland Islands, for historical reasons, are way more Swedish then Finnish. They have their own unique culture, Swedish dialects, flag, and stamps, and remain one of the most popular summer vacation destinations for Swedes and Finns, alike. Hence we headed there to get some beach time and soak up the sun..........NOT! It's main town, Marieham is a sleepy place full of geriatric retirees taking a weekend break. We were literally stuck on an Island surrounded by oldies and pouring rain. We took ourselves to the ... read more

Today Ama, Hanna aiti and I went on a Viking Line picnic cruise to Aland island (aka, half way to stockholm!). We boarded the nine story ship (same one from my trip to Stockhold for the vanhojen ristely) in the Turku harbor at 8 am. We put our jackets up then found a nice place to sit on the sixth floor. We talked and bought steph a kiddie cup with a light stick inside, my very own plastic cup AND some sukulaku! (the only salmiaki like thing i actually LOVE!). We walked around and went shopping at Tax Free and some shop that was selling perfume and clothing. We went out on the deck to take some pictures and had some snacks. We people watched and looked out the window. At the beginning of the day ... read more