I had a few days to myself in Turku
as Alice and Leon left to go home and Charles disappeared for a few days on a
business trip.
The first day, I took the train half
an hour down the line to Salo, where Merja and Saku live, and spent a lovely
day with them. Merja took me to an excellent
art gallery, very impressive for a small town, to an exhibition of paintings by
Olli Lyytikäinen, who was one of a well-known group of Finnish artists called The
Harvesters or Reapers. As well as their
own art work, members of the group contributed to joint paintings in the name
of an imaginary artist! Olli Lyytikäinen was a watercolourist who merged pop
art with surrealism, and who treated Donald Duck with the same gravity as he
would Hamlet. These are two of his famous paintings which I liked …
It was also good to see a bit of the
Finnish countryside away from towns and the sea – rolling fields, red wooden
farm buildings and lots of pine trees.
Back at Merja and Saku’s house we
had traditional Finnish coffee and cake and Saku gave me some advice about
routes through the thousands of islands in the archipelago …
On the train back to Turku from
Salo, I was amazed at the play area provided in the special ‘children’s
carriage’ …
I then spent a few days exploring
Turku (Swedish name Åbo) which was for many centuries the capital of Finland. The capital was only moved to Helsinki in
1812 when the Grand Duchy of Finland was part of the Russian Empire.
Turku castle is an impressive,
medieval fortress which has stood guard
over the River Aura estuary since the 1280s. It was originally built on an island, but the land here is rising at a
rate of 2cm per 100 years, so the fortress is now joined to the rest of the
city of Turku.
It contains some well-preserved
wall-paintings dating from the 1500s …
In the evening, I took myself off to
a fabulous concert by the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra in the Turku Concert
Hall …
The weather here is very changeable
at the moment, sudden showers and gusts of wind interspersed with sunny spells,
occasional rumbles of thunder and the odd rainbow! A good day for catching up
on things like laundry and taking a walk along the river where I came across a
tree with a face …
… this dramatic whale sculpture …
… and a huge daisy sculpture.
Later I got out the folding bike and
cycled along the excellent riverside cycle track in the other direction.
The architecture of the city is a
mixture of rather uninspiring ‘blocky’ buildings with some older attractive
buildings in between …
… and in the old quarter near the
cathedral.
This is Turku Cathedral …
I visited Luostarinmäki, an area of
Turku which has become an open-air museum where there are demonstrations of all
sorts of traditional handicrafts. The
museum consists of a village of 200 year old buildings still in their original
location, and is the largest area to completely survive the Great Fire of Turku
in 1827. These very basic houses, with
grass roofs and no ‘mod cons’, were lived in until the 1980s and there was
clearly a great sense of community spirit.
The day I visited was part of the
annual ‘Handicraft Days’ festival, so there were people dressed in traditional
costume demonstrating printing, cigar-making, saddlery, carpentry,
instrument-making …
… and even curtain tassel making,
which was very intricate and time-consuming!
These three ladies from Haapsalu in Estonia
were demonstrating various Estonian crafts – they were pleased that I’d heard
of their home town and had even been there!
Saturday 23rd August - the
end of the season
Time to move on and head back
towards Saltsjöbaden for the winter! It certainly looks like a good day to
leave Turku behind! This picture was taken at 7.30 in the morning …
… but by lunchtime we were enjoying
a pleasant passage through the islands with sunshine and blue skies …
… past this fish farm which looked a
bit as if lots of little alien spaceships had just landed!
… and this typical yellow cable ferry with its little
settlement of boat houses …
It’s a pity we’ve rather dashed
through this part of the Finnish archipelago, but the weather hasn’t made it
very tempting to stop – although there are sunny spells (when I’ve taken most
of the photos!) By the last week of
August, it definitely feels quite Autumnal and very much the end of the season
here.
We anchored for the night in a very
sheltered spot between the islands of Stolpören and Kumlinge – it looked
perfect for a swim until we noticed the sea was full of jellyfish, like pearl
barley in soup! Ugh! It was so
sheltered, it was hard to tell you were at sea and the night was pitch black
with absolutely no light pollution.
We were up bright and early the next
morning – still too many jellyfish for a swim! – to continue our passage
towards the Åland islands …
It was a beautiful clear day and the
sun made the sea look silvery as it rose higher in the sky …
Here we are entering the area of the
Åland islands, which is an autonomous region of Finland, but where they speak Swedish and have their own
independent postal service – as I found to my cost when I tried to post cards
with Finnish stamps on them!
We then had to make a 2-hour detour
due to a 20 metre high power cable not marked on our paper chart but shown on
the electronic plotter when we zoomed in.
We weren’t sure if it was still there or not, but our mast is 20.6
metres high – so we couldn’t risk it!
The wind got up and the sea a bit rougher, though it was still nice and
sunny …
We eventually arrived in the main
town, Mariehamn, to find the harbour virtually deserted at this end of the
season – not even the harbourmaster was there!
He could only be contacted by phone and said to have the berth free of
charge as he wouldn’t be in till 10am tomorrow!
The town
was also incredibly quiet – hardly a soul about – but it looks like a nice
place and we resolved to come back next year.
Monday
25th August – Mariehamn to Vaxholm in one day!
A long day
of motoring / motor-sailing in perfect conditions for making a sea passage –
almost completely flat calm the whole way!
Sea like a millpond, sunny and blue skies, but just a bit of an Autumn
nip in the air.
Back in the
Stockholm archipelago, the islands are still very pretty, but there are
definitely more buildings and it’s all rather more groomed, neater, manicured
than the Finnish archipelago.
The only
waves were our own wake …
… and those
made by passing ferries!
We arrived
in Vaxholm after a 10 hour day, past its famous castle …
… to a
beautiful, peaceful, rosy sunset over the harbour …
This lovely
little family of ducklings came to visit us – rather late in the season
maybe? I hope they survive!
We had a
couple of relaxing days in Vaxholm, catching up on laundry, boat housework,
reading, blogging etc – one day was really wet and miserable, the next glorious
sunshine. Here’s Astraia in a sunny Vaxholm
harbour …
Vaxholm is
an attractive and historic Swedish wooden-built town crammed with interesting
old buildings …
… many with
fine, carved wooden detail …
This is the
shopping street …
… and the
lovely old Hembygdsgård café …
… which had
an amazing selection of delicious Swedish cakes! We visited it 3 times during our short stay!
We had a
surprise visit from an ‘old’ friend and blog-follower, Dick, who was
coincidentally in Stockholm and likes visiting castles …
Ready to go
sight-seeing!
This was
our desired destination – Vaxholm Fortress.
It was originally built in 1544 as part of Stockholm’s defences – the
stretch of water below the building used to be the main sea route to
Stockholm. Most of the current structure
dates from the mid 19th century.
Inside the
castle walls – the buildings have been renovated with the traditional paint
colours which would have originally been used …
One of the
cannons strategically positioned on the top of the tower …
This is the
view of Vaxholm and the harbour from the castle …
The view in
the other direction over the archipelago …
Massive
ferries and cruise ships weave their way through the narrow channels of the
archipelago looking rather out of scale with the islands …
A
marvellous sight passing by …
… and
another lovely sailing boat …
… and a
rather more bizarre sea-going vessel!
We headed
back towards Saltsjöbaden through the narrow Baggensstäket …
… past
lovely houses designed to make the most of their rocky position …
… then managed to get the sails up all the way back to Napoleonviken bay on Ägnö island,
one of our favourite spots.
The sky looked
very threatening as we approached through the narrow channel …
… followed
by a spectacular rainbow …
The
following morning after a final ‘refreshing’ swim in 13 degrees (I only managed
once round the boat!) we headed back to our winter ‘home’, the Sune Carlsson
Båtvarv, took down and folded the sails and started to pack everything up over
the next couple of days …
We had one
more trip into Stockholm, saw Gamla Stan at its best in the evening sunshine …
… and met
up with Allie and Mona for a delicious Indian meal …
Back on
board, our final sunset didn’t disappoint!
So it’s farewell to the Baltic again until next year … we
will be back!
Before anyone else mentions it, the worst photo is the one of me visiting Astraia ... although with any luck people were still thinking of the cakes at the Hembygdsgård café in the previous one.
ReplyDeleteGood to see pictures of Turku castle, which has lots of staircases and corridors and nooks and crannies.
But, as ever, you leave us on a cliffhanger ... where are you now?
Of course it wasn't the worst photo! Anyway, I couldn't finish the blog without putting you in it - I thought we looked quite good as we set off sightseeing! As you say, the cakes were quite a distraction anyway! We have now just started on this year's cruise and are in a place called Paradise in the Stockholm archipelago! This year's blog will be starting soon - promise!! Di xx
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