On the Water

Summary:

Route: Turku -> Åland -> Stockholm
Distance: 175km + ferries
Duration: 3 days + 1 day in Stockholm

Day 6:

After four and a half months, it’s eventually time to leave Finland.
I’ve had a very cold, but amazing time here. My next destination is Åland, which is an autonomous and Swedish speaking Region of Finland and is situated right in the Baltic Sea, in the middle of Finland and Sweden. Instead of taking one of the large cruise ships departing in Turku and directly heading towards Mariehamn, Ålands capital, I decided to travel with the local Ålandstrafiken ferries. They operate a northern and a southern line, as well as some additional connecting ones in summer (this being Finland, not before June). I decided to take the northern route leaving in Kustavi/Gustavs. The way there is very calm and you can find some weird old buildings.

From there the ferry would take me to Åva a small island connected to a couple others, by an astonishingly beautiful road.


You can find a full blog post, including a time-lapse video I made, here: https://steemit.com/travel/@artesian.life/the-most-beautiful-road-in-the-world


I cycled over a couple of these islands, I can’t even tell you many, some of them were really tiny, until Torsholma, where another local ferry would pick me up again. This ferry either brings you to some more islands in the archipelago, or can take you directly to Hummelvik on Vårdö, which is already connected to the main Åland Island.

It was getting late and already having seen a lot of impressive islands, I took ferry all the way and went to sleep in my hammock close by the port in Hummelvik.

Luckily for me there was a 24h waiting hall for the ferries, where I could charge my electronics during the night.

Day 7:

I had an invitation to stay at someone’s house close to Mariehamn for the next night. So I got up and cycled along Ålands road passing the ruins of an old Russian castle.


Arrived on the other side of the island, I explored the small city for a while, and then went to meet my host for the night and his family.


I got some pasta and went to sleep in a real bed in a room just for myself. They had a cute cat, too. :)

Day 8:

My host’s mother was working in the local art and history museum, and so I ended up on the guest list and even got a short private tour the next day.
Later in the afternoon, I would be boarding a Viking line cruise ship which would take me to Stockholm.

At the harbour, I happen to meet a couple of other exchange students from my Finish University and I so I have some company for the 5 hour cruise to Stockholm.


We arrive quite late and although I had different invitations to stay at in Stockholm, it turns out that it’s impossible to host me for these days for all of them due to various reasons. As a result, after enjoying a beautiful sunset over Stockholm I would end up sleeping in my Hammock again.

Never before have I been camping inside of a city and I feel weird, while I head to some parks south of the city to look for a nice spot to sleep. It had a stigma of a homeless person sleeping on a park bench. turns out it’s not bad at all. While being perfectly legal in Sweden it’s also totally accepted by the people around.

Day 9:

On the next morning, I had a friendly kindergarten group greeting me, and a local started telling me stories how he was bike touring and sleeping in weird places in the 80-ies and he even invited me to have a shower and make myself some breakfast at his place just nearby. Freshly showered and strengthened by the breakfast I cycle trough the city. It’s the day of the Europa League Final between Ajax Amsterdam and Manchester United, there are celebrating football fans everywhere 😃 I had towards the Vasa Museum, Sweden’s most popular Museum.

It features the impressive and to more than 97% original preserved, royal warship Vasa, which sank due to a masterpiece of human ignorance after just a couple of minutes on the water. It has been lying underwater in the Stockholm harbour for 333 years before being discovered and being brought up again.

In the evening, I meet up with a girl which originally invited me to stay with her, but can’t host me currently because of some circumstances. But we spend a very nice evening around the bars of Södermalm. I return to last night’s camping spot and go to sleep. On the next day, I would leave Stockholm again to head South.