Day 10 – Ferry to Stockholm

Today is a big change from yesterday. It’s sunny and warm. How quickly the weather changes on the Baltic Sea. I’m on the final leg of St Olav’s Waterway which is the ferry from Mariehamn to Stockholm.

I spent this morning in Mariehamn’s biggest attraction, the Åland Maritime Museum. Mariehamn was established in 1861 as a base for their large sailing ships that transported grain from Australia to England. The story of this round the world trip, passing South Africa on the way out and Cape Horn on the return, is told through many artifacts, pieces of wreckage, photographs and films. After that, I toured one of those last surviving ships, the Pommern, docked alongside the museum. Fascinating morning.

It was then a short stroll along the quay to the ferry terminal for the five and a half hour sailing between thousands of tree covered islands to Stockholm.

The ferry is a large Viking Line ship complete with rock band, disco, several sun decks, restaurants and duty free bars (only 6.90 euros for half a litre) and yet it sails so close to all the islands of the Stockholm archipelago that you could almost leap ashore as you sail by. Many of the islands have beautiful summer houses for the Swedes to pass their many weeks of annual vacation.

I love Sweden. I worked for three Swedish companies over the years and I’ve spent a lot of time here. The lifestyle suits me. I like the people, the breakfasts and their Scandi-style. It’s amazing to recall some of the things Sweden has given the world: Nobel prizes, IKEA, Nokia phones, Spotify, the pacemaker, Celsius, Minecraft, H&M, Ingmar Bergman, safety matches, dynamite, Tetrapak, Skype, Ultrasound and of course, ABBA.