Åland (Finland)

I had looked at a day trip to Finland from Stockholm before I left. Most of the trips on offer were overnight cruises to Helsinki with a small stop over in the Åland archipelago. These trips were also quite expensive and as I was only away for 3 nights I couldn't go for a 2 night return sailing across the Baltic sea and be back in time for my flight home. I also would not have seen any of Stockholm had I done that!
I was about to give up on visiting Finland when I saw another company advertised who offered an inclusive ticket from Stockholm to Mariehamn and back again on the coach and the ferry! When I saw it was only £16 I booked it!

But where and what is Mariehamn and the Åland Islands I hear you say?

Well, they are an archipelago of roughly 6,500 islands and skerries located roughly half way between Sweden and Finland in the Baltic sea, at the entrance of the Gulf of Bothnia. Only a handful of these are populated. There is one tiny land border with Sweden on the uninhabited island of Märket!

The islands are an autonomous, de-militarised, Swedish speaking region of Finland which issues their own postage stamps and have their own parliament and number plates. This means that while the official currency is the Euro, they are happy to accept Swedish Krona too and unlike some places where dual currency is taken, they don't charge different prices for either nor do they give out change only in Euro coins. I had both anyway! The islands are not part of the European Union, but are part of Schengen, so I didn't need to take my passport with me (I did anyway). The capital city is Mariehamn which is located on the main Island (Fasta Åland) and is home to about 90% of the population which is about as much as Montrose in Scotland. They have an airport in Mariehamn which is home to Air Åland, the national carrier!

The closest I can compare it to is like the Channel Islands. Although protected by the UK and the people there have UK citizenship, they are not technically part of the UK! The same is pretty much said of Åland in relation to mainland Finland!

So at 6:30am I got up and got the bus to Solna, which was another metro stop on the other side of the neighbourhood from my hotel. I had to choose that station as my usual station didn't open that early on a Sunday. Solna station is on one of the original underground lines (Brommaplan was a newer station/line). For anyone in the know (I read wikipedia before I left) the older lines on Stockholm's Tunnelbanen are home to some very interesting stations, some of which have been turned into works of art in their own right! Solna station was strange, with exposed stone painted red with some scenes of the Swedish wilderness painted on the walls.

A picture of the platform at Solna is here Here
And Here is a picture of the stairs down from the main entrance

I got to Cityterminalen again and my bus to Mariehamn was waiting for me. I grabbed a pastry and hot chocolate for breakfast and got on the bus. The journey up to Grisselhamn (a tiny little fishing village which serves as the ferry port for this route) was not very long, just over an hour. The scenery on the way up was quite nice. Lots of forests and farm land and a few small towns a long the way. When we arrived in the small town the ferry was sitting waiting for us. The terminal is small and quite crowded. There were mainly Swedish people hopping over to the Åland Isles for some cheap Booze, a bit like people from Kent going to Calais for wine! As the islands themselves are not that cheap, and indeed there is only one shop selling alcohol in Mariehamn. Most people go to take advantage of the fact the ship sails in international waters, outside of EU restrictions, and therefore the booze are cheaper on the ship than in either Finland or Sweden! There are also no restrictions on how much can be bought. This was evident as as soon as the duty free shop opened there was a flood of people in there! I got some duty free Daim bars!

The boarding was done quite quickly considering the number of people there (about 4 coach loads plus of course all of the cars and trucks) and I was standing on deck looking out at the Baltic sea about 45 minutes after getting to Grisselhamn. The view was very impressive. Lots of tiny little islands dotting the Swedish coast, some only as big as a house with a few trees on top and others big enough for a few houses and private slipways. All of them were covered in snow and a few had ice all around them. You can see some pictures of this on my Stockholm and Åland folder by following the link to my Picassa album.

Anyway, before we set sail I had a  look round the ship. The M.V. Eckerö was quite nice, fairly moderninside and very busy! A picture of her can be found here . As all of the announcements were made in Swedish and Finnish I had no idea what to do in the event of an emergency or what time the duty free shop would open, so I took advantage of the sunlight and stayed on deck for most of the journey!

As we made our way out of Grisselhamn and out into the Baltic Sea it became quite warm, easily a good 3 or 4c. The sky was clear and the sea was smooth, so I knew it'd be a good sailing! About an hour into the 2 hour crossing the sea started to get very icy. At first there was large blocks of broken ice and then about an hour out of Åland we just hit solid ice! The ship was literally carving her way through this ice field, and doing a pretty good job of it! We were literally in the middle of an ice field, frozen sea in all directions, yet the ship just kept on going! All that could be seen was a few sea birds resting on the ice and some tiny little islands poking out through the top! Some no bigger than a shoe box!

At about 30 minutes from the end of the crossing my phone went a bit crazy. I didn't even think, but as I was in Finland I had crossed a timezone to Eastern European time (Sweden is in Central European Time). The clock jumped forward another hour and my network changed from "Telenor" to "Elisa". I turned on the GPS and my Nokia (which was now home!) showed a little red dot surrounded by blue!

Our arrival into Eckerö port on the M.V. Eckerö was very smooth and quick and I was on the bus to Mariehamn in about 30 minutes. There are not many roads on the Åland islands and the roads that are there are not very busy on a Sunday afternoon. I put the radio on to hear what music they enjoyed in Åland. It was Katy Perry and Lady Gaga. I turned the radio off. The journey to Mariehamn didn't take long and soon I was walking around looking at a seriously frozen harbour and ankle deep snow! I got some lunch with the small amount of Euro notes I had. A bowl of chips and a can of fanta came to £5.50!

I did some souvenir shopping and sent a few postcards. The stamps have a picture of one of the ships that serve the Islands! I spent  a lot of time walking around Mariehamn and the surrounding areas after I ran out of money! They are very picturesque with lots of little houses and a few churches. The streets were quite quiet after the shops had shut the town centre was pretty much deserted. I get the feeling there is very little crime in Mariehamn so I didn't feel unsafe wandering around aimlessly waiting for my coach back to the ferry.

The time came for me to get back and pretty soon I was onboard the ferry again. Just as we left Eckerö the sun was setting. The view over the still, frozen sea with thousand of tiny islands was nothing short of spectacular and I took a fair few pictures! The return crossing was uneventful. I didn't go outside at all because it was pitch black and freezing cold. The wind had picked up a bit although the sea was not rough. We arrived back into Sweden at about 8pm and got on the coach back to Stockholm. I slept most of the way back. When I got back to the city centre I bought some more sweets and cakes and headed back to the hotel and had a look at what I could do the next day, which was my first full day in Stockholm!

Part 3 will follow!