Kirjala to Pensar, 27km
My breakfast provisions in the Waudevilla cabin were adequate in quantity if not in quality and as there was nothing except for the snoring of my virtual bedmate in the adjoining cabin to hold me, I set off at what would have been dawn if the sun had risen at normal times and headed to Pargas for coffee and croissants. But the only open cafe was woefully unprepared for me so I went to the 19th century stone church instead. It was locked so I couldn’t get a pilgrim stamp but I stayed a long time in the churchyard paying my respects to the fallen of WW2. There was a large black monolith with all the names and dates of death. I’m not going to be clever; I had to Google which side they were on when they died. 1939-40 the Finns were defending against the Soviet invasion. 1941-44 they sided with Nazi Germany and then they switched to the Allies for the duration of the war. Finland joined NATO in 2023.
My path this morning was a continuation of the tarmac cycle track along the archipelago’s main road. The never ending fir trees were only broken by the occasional insulation and cladding factory. The kilometres passed slowly until I saw some writing in crayon on the track, “cafe 100m”. Soon, colourful images of coffee and ice cream joined the countdown until I arrived at an upturned boat serving as a summertime cafe. What joy! It had only just opened when I arrived, in fact the two men who run the place from their nearby summer home said they drove past me and thought I’d be their first customer. They gave me half a litre of rhubarb cordial and an ice cream. Everything is locally sourced, organic and all the rest of it.
Soon afterwards I left the main road and headed deep into the archipelago. Everything became beautiful. I arrived at the water as the ferry to Pensar approached and hopped on with a couple of cars. We sailed in between little islands, stopping occasionally to collect people and vehicles until I jumped off at Pensar, my island for tonight. Then it was a gorgeous walk to a bay on the other side where my hotel sits alone on the edge of the water.
Pilgrimage 
Super photos Tim – keep ‘em coming…
I love taking them! I print them in a book when I het home from each walk
Love that little cafe!
So did I. A gem
Hi Tim
Great to be reading your blog again. Super pictures but I hope the apparent lack of pilgrims/walkers is down to your early starts. Love the cafe but I think they may need to rethink the business plan!
Hey that’s my kind of business plan. Open except when raining!
Didn’t realise there were so many islands. Like the idea of a pop-up cafe app, bet it would be handy.
Happy trails.
That boat looked like it had just popped up
When you wrote ‘upturned boat’ I had a different picture in mind! What a welcome little gem.
How does the ferry system work? On a schedule? Continuous loop? Is it a free service?
Sorry for the reply double up yesterday. Word Press have changed how we used to be able to respond…it’s a bit awky now! 😫😆
The ferries are free for foot passengers, they run to a schedule and I’m reserving ahead although they never refuse a foot passenger. The reservation is only necessary because they don’t stop if there’s no booking.
Wordpress has been a bit naughty making changes without saying. I’ve just discovered the emails contain the entire blog but no featured image so I’ve changed it back to how I first set up my site. From now on the email will only carry an extract and my featured image with a link to my website to read the rest of the blog. I don’t understand why they switched off the featured image which is the photo that draws you in.
interesting day, the boat Cafe needs some biscuits
I think they had some but I’m keen to offload my flapjacks!
We will be stopping off in Denmark this fall to investigate the various WW2 sites and museums….when I heard you tell that Finland switched sides I was shocked. I need to start to get up to date on WW2 Scandanavian history. Looks like nice weather for you and that cafe boat was quite the find 🙂
So much of Europe is shaped by its wars especially WW2 and it’s worthwhile to check the history of any country you’re visiting. I’m continuing my walk in Denmark later next week and will look out for any WW2 sites and cheese. In the meantime, happy Independence Day