Travelling through Roslagen

Few things are as deserted as Stockholm City on a summer Sunday, especially if it is raining, but you have to be out early to catch the boat. We sailed through a misty archipelago, islands appearing and disappearing in the murk. At Östanå färjeläge we got off and continued on foot. We would have missed Wira Bruk if it hadn’t been for the signs–the buildings lay in a depression hidden behind the summer greenery. While
there would be a performance of Wiraspelen in the evening, it wasn’t our plan to attend and the recurrent rain made it an unattractive proposition anyway. Instead we walked around the little village, split by the skipping brook that used to drive the waterwheels of the smithies.

We snacked in the little café, I restrained Honeybuns from buying some horridly expensive chandeliers in the iron craft exhibition and then we continued on our way. We caught the bus to Norrtälje, riding past some potential future excursion targets.

By now we were pretty hungry, so we wandered through the Old Town of Norrtälje, looking for somewhere to eat. Apparently most people agreed with us on what places looked nice, as they were full, but finally we ended up by the harbour and S/S Norrtelje. We had a quite pleasant late lunch which we finished just in time to have time to peek in the curio shop by the quay. Honeybuns spotted something that might become our new kitchen table if we can figure out how to transport it. In the meantime she bought a stack of bargain books. Then we got to the bus terminal just as the bus to Stockholm pulled in.

Outing

As has become a tradition by now, we went out to Utö over the Midsummer weekend. We boarded the morning boat from Strömkajen in a light but cool drizzle, which continued on and off during our journey. As we arrived, we took a little stroll long the main street, thinking perhaps we should eat down in the village, when the restaurant there turned on their music machine and blasted the area with the current hits, so we quickly went up the hill to the inn. We didn’t recognise any of the staff and we even got directed to a table diagonally off from our usual one, but the food was, as usual, excellent. Then we withdrew to our room and dropped off for a nap in spite of the bass thumping from the village restaurant being clearly audible. Before going for dinner I caught an episode of Riverside Cottage on the telly. Sustainable veggie cooking. Good stuff.

At dinner a group of male friends arrived, managing to still look hung over from, presumably, the midsummer celebrations the day before. The food was good and varied. As we exited, a police patrol appeared at the door, doing the rounds. No violent crime in progress at the inn, though.

Sunday morning was sunny, even though there were clouds rolling by in the distance. We decided to go for a long walk after breakfast.

Summer skies

Räfstavik, looking out towards the open sea.

There were pools up on the rocks, full with little fishes that presumably had been splashed up there as spawn. I was very concerned for their sake—eventually they’d have to return to the sea. Would they figure out how to jump and in which direction?

Walking back through the forest.

After lunch we took the boat to Årsta. When we got to the train station, the rain started to fall again.

Boating

For my birthday Honeybuns had given me a boat trip on Gustafsberg VII, and now it was time to cash in on it. The weather wasn’t the best, but we might have to wait for ever for that the way this summer has been going, so now was as good a time as any.

As usual we were a bit late in the start, so had to run a bit, but made the boat in time. There were not particularly many other travellers, so we got good seats at the front. As we got under steam, we found that we had a tour guide, pointing out the usual landmarks long the way. I think it must have been the guide’s first trip, or at least I hope it was, as the exposition was less than smooth, with, odd pauses, and the English translation was clumpy. In particular century numbers were difficult—they are one off from the way you say the years, but is it one lower or one higher? We got both variants.

Still, the archipelago is as it is and it was nice to glide through it. In Gustavsberg we had a couple of hours and decided to eat as a first priority. The restaurant that I had been to on my one previous visit to Gustavsberg was gone, but we found another one. It looked like any random pizza place, but they turned out to serve huge portions of quite well-prepared food.

Before returning to the boat I located birthday presents for the sisterly children in the factory outlet. On the way back we sat in the aft saloon in very comfortable easy chairs.

Utö and Ålö

The Mill House is a short walk through the woods from the main building.

Back to Utö again. The morning doesn’t start off very well—the weather isn’t the best, the place is too crowded, the usual staff is on vacation, and a million other little things annoy us. However, we get a very cosy room in the Mill House and we go for what seems to have become our favourite activity here: Collapse in bed and wake up in time for dinner. A five-course meal later we feel a lot better.

The next morning we have breakfast outdoors and then make use of the bike tour we won last Christmas. We get a couple of sturdy bikes with balloon tires, buy us lunch in the local shop and then strike out to explore the map with secret bathing places we have been supplied with.

The sea is never far away.

In no time at all we are in a landscape which makes me feel as if we were in a Swedish 1940s film, perforce the bike even wants to go on the left side of the road. We travel on wheel-track roads past green meadows with cows and sheep, the sun is warm without being hot (though I’ve taken the precaution of slathering myself with the usual SPF 50+) and it feels as if all the road is downhill. (We did start at sea level, but since we are moving southwards this must obviously be due to the curvature of the Earth…)

A TGB m/42 SKPD

We move into the firing range at southern Utö, open to the public during the summer. The landscape is as lush as before, but every few metres are placards with dire warnings about not touching unexploded ordnance. We arrive at a military compund with a couple of armoured vehicles on exhibit outside. We crawl around a bit on them and then continue on our way.

Eventually we cross a little bridge to Ålö, separated from Utö by the narrowest of sounds. Here is our first stop, we sit on a rock, looking on the sea and eating our lunch and then we just sit there and enjoy the day.

A Södermanland forest at its most beautiful.

Then to find the next bridge back to Utö. Next to it is a little hut like a ticket window, but its actual purpose is opaque. We end up on what goes for the main road around the south of the island. It brings us to a beach, perfect for amphibious assault exercises, but now occupied by a smattering of families with children. It turns out to be mostly impossible to bike through the loose sand, we have to push the bikes along until we get up on solid ground again. We continue, soon stopping to eat wild strawberries and chat with a baby squirrel sitting by the road.

Soon we find ourselves by the centre piece of the firing range, a long rail track on which I surmise targets are pulled during exercises. A seriously shot-up skip stands by the track.

Faithfully guarding the ramparts.

We aim for our final target, a cave by the shore. We have to leave the bikes by the road and follow a foot path through the forest for a bit. To Honeybuns’ disappointment, the caves are in fact little more than deep crevices, but the cliff landscape is fantastic and I suddenly find a dilapidated bunker hidden in a ravine. We jump around on the cliffs for a while, but now, how should we get back to the bikes? Probably best to just cut straight throught the forest. Of course, since this is a military area, the forest has never been logged and does not take lightly to our efforts to pass. Finally we sight the road and stumble up on it. Time for tick inspection. No nasty critters seem to have attached themselves to us. Honeybuns is relieved. I am even more relieved that we didn’t accidentally step on an old landmine or something, belatedly having realised what a stupid idea it was to go off-road.

Now it is time to return to the harbour and get home. Rather tired by now, we pedal along sedately when I see something brownish moving out of the corner of my eye. Another squirrel, no, a dog, no, AN ELK! The elk jumps up on the road behind me and I, flustered, pedal away as fast as I can, wishing I had a ten-speed. Luckily the elk drops the chase after just a few steps and returns in among the trees without showing much interest in Honeybuns, so she soon rejoins me. We return along the side of the shooting range and while we have seen very few people all day, now returning bikers appear on all tributary roads, heading for the harbour. Soon we are a convoy, heading north.

Luckily the Earth has revolved enough that it’s still mostly downhill, because by now we are really tired. We return the bikes and sit down for a breather. We have dinner in the restaurant on the main street and then get on the boat.

We’re baack!

Already during our previous visit to Utö we decided to return for their Christmas market, and so we did.

M/S Waxholm II was already pretty full when we boarded so we got seats far aft. A fourish girl sitting in front of us teased me with her giraffe-ears-and-horns head piece. I indicated my great envy.

When we arrived, Utö Värdshus looked pretty different from when we saw it last: In the yard was a number of market stalls, the celebrated Christmas market. The entrance was extended with a tent that turned out to contain a temporary cloakroom. We didn’t think much about it, but went straight in for check-in.

Through magic hotel-staff skills, the receptionist recognises us immediately. Our room is not yet ready, but will soon be. We drop off our luggage and tour the little market. Some parts of it are in fact inside the inn building, we duck in and out, me bumping my head on the low door lintels. Finally I manage to bump my head on some overhanging snow and get a heap of it inside my collar. IH! IH! Honeybuns thinks it’s silly of me to be so tall, she manages perfectly well. A snow fight ensues, until I notice the little girl from the boat. A few stealthy steps and Haha! now I have giraffe horns. I strut about a bit before returning the horns.

We briefly peeked into the mine museum and the ominously-named Boutique Hybris, and chatted with the staff, but didn’t find anything particularly interesting, shopping-wise. As we will have Christmas dinner in the evening, we skip the inn and instead have lunch at the Society House. Pricey, but good. We note that quite a few families with children are visiting the inn and the market—there’s a long line of prams outside. And! The inn is completely packed with people having Christmas luncheon. Where did they all come from?

We pick up our key and retire to our room. Our plans had included studying, but after a week’s worth of early mornings, we just fall asleep. When we wake up, it’s already dark outside. I turn on the telly and “Christmas at River Cottage” spreads Christmas cheer that I decide not to consider the fakeytude of, but just enjoy, though when Hugh goes out into the garden to pick vegetables on the morning of Christmas Eve, I throw a glance at the snow dunes outside our cottage.

Come dinner time we climb the hill up to the inn and it’s clear that the extra cloak room is needed, the place is as full as it was for lunch. Robert, the maitre d’, greets us: “Ah, there you are! [aside to a staffer:] OK, now everybody is here.” Oops, we’re last? Well, as they say, the later, the finer the guests. We are escorted to our favourite table, the one with the best view.

Then, off to sample the 150+ dishes. While we do not taste them all, everything we eat is delicious and even with our respective food restrictions there’s plenty enough both for Honeybuns and me to eat. We peek at the other patrons, clearly many families—children sleeping by the tables here and there— groups of friends, snippets of song here and there (though with the snobbism afforded by a polytechnic education I consider the variety and quality of performance of the drinking songs to be less than adequate). We had thought we’d get some reading done after dinner, but now the lounges are used for dining guests, so we instead, happily sated, walk down the hill, through the driving snow, and in spite of our long afternoon nap, we fall asleep again not too much later.

In the morning, the snowfall has increased in intensity as we walk up the hill for breakfast. Apparently, we didn’t quite live up to classic Christmas dinner standards, as we had no need at all for the head-ache pills and indigestion powders strategically placed in the middle of the breakfast buffet. As we checked out, we made a booking for this summer, and I bought some of the sausages on offer in the Christmas market. We also bought a handful of tickets in the lottery stand and won bike rental for two during the summer—what a useful coincidence.

And then, the boat home through the still-increasing snowfall.

Saturday Night Special

We were so pleased with our previous visit to Utö that we already then decided we’d return in the wintertime and booked an Archipelago Weekend.

Saturday morning broke with brilliant sunshine from a cloudless sky glittering on fresh snow and we got out the door in high spirits. This time of year there is no ship connection all the way from Stockholm to Utö, instead we had to take the train to Västerhaninge, make a quick sprint to bus 846, which is supposed to leave at the same time as the train arrives at the station, and continue on to Årsta Brygga. Waxholm II was waiting for us at the jetty.

Ice and snow.

We crunched our way through a channel of broken ice, passing very secret military installations and a couple of deer running on the ice without any Bambi problems and soon were at Utö.

Summers are short: Presumably a bird was flying by just as the tree was growing, so that it had to give way.

When we had checked in and checked out our spacious (though still rather cold, as the season had just started) room we went out for a walk. The little group of houses by the harbour, shops closed for the winter, was soon behind us and we found ourselves in a forest where, when we stopped, all that could be heard was little clumps of snow falling off branches and the wind like the sound of a train in the distance.

This is not your father’s spinach soup.

Eventually we were hungry enough that we returned to the inn and a delightful lunch. After lunch we trudged in the snow up to the old windmill and then across the island to the nearby swimming cove. When we returned we found we’d covered two kilometres in as many hours. We decided it must have been good exercise. We returned to our room to dry our snowy clothes and rest a bit. We saw an episode of Merlin and groaned and moaned at the anachronisms and the hackneyed dialogue. The reason for Honeybuns’ big bag was made clear to me as she changed for dinner. I felt very scruffy in comparison.

The dinner was every bit as excellent as the lunch, and specially made for us. We got our favourite corner table where we could look out over the sea and see the lights of the mainland in the far distance. After dinner we sat in the big leather sofas in the lounge and read the books we’d brought. Eventually we walked and slipped down the hill under the starry sky to our room, where we soon fell asleep.

These days, mooring your sailboat requires not just electricity but also WLAN.

The morning was overcast and foggy but we got up early for breakfast and dawdled an hour or two over it. Then we went to explore the harbour and the road in the other direction. Another excellent bespoke lunch, with ingredients we’d never seen in combination before and then we had an hour to relax before our ship came in. This day the sound as it moved was slushier.

On the way we passed what seemed to be the carcass of a yearling elk on the ice, picked at by ravens. At least they would not have to starve for a while.

Steaming about

This morning Honeybuns and I got on a train pulled by good old B 1136, travelling towards Nynäshamn. The heavy weather pushed down the coal smoke and often made it hard to see the landscape, but I eagerly peered at the surroundings, that in spite of being close to Stockholm, were unfamiliar to me. (So, we'd gone there by car quite often when I was a kid to see relatives, but that hadn't really left any impression.)

The railway station in Nynäshamn is in the harbour, where the boats for Gotland leave. At the time there was a Polferries boat in, the Gotland boat only coming later in the evening. It seems like the tracks used to go all the way to the harbour, allowing cargo to be transferred between ship and rail, but these days only commuter trains and the occasional museum train comes here.

There is a fairly large marina as well, catered to by tourist traps in little houses. These had been supplemented by stands for the Christmas market. We had lunch, which was decent, but rather expensive, confirming the tourist trap nature of the place. The market contained nothing remarkable, but I got myself a smoked trout and a jar of cloudberry glögg concentrate.

We made an excursion to the town centre, where there were also a couple of stands huddling in the drizzle—the children's merry-go-round did not feel at home in the winter weather. However, the local book store and haberdashery, respectively, yielded useful supplies.

As we returned to the harbour, the rain intensified, and we jumped on board S/S Blidösund. On board the ship was also a jazz orchestra and we ended up sitting right next to it. When we had left the harbour, we had a bit of rough sea until we returned into the shelter of islands and as soon as the deck was stable enough to stand on, the orchestra started to play. I can enjoy listening to trad jazz, but I have to admit all songs sound the same to me. I wonder if this is due to the orchestra actually improvising, and thus not really following any particular tune. Sort of a wall of sound, more than melody.

We had dinner on the boat. The two French ladies who were placed next to us, and who I tried to translate the menu for (well, what does “Blidösund hot dish” contain? We had to ask the waitress) took the opportunity to transfer to an empty table, leaving us to our « romantique dinneur ».

The ship trip took considerable longer than the train ride, but eventually we ended up at Skeppsbron and walked to the central station for the ordinary boring public transport home.

Far out

Having travelled through the southern reaches of Stockholm proper, we now set out for the archipelago. Utö is about as far as you get with the regular boat service and is a nice place anyway, so we got on the 08:45 service from Strömkajen with M/S Saxaren. The sky was mostly overcast, but didn't rain. We marvelled at houses along the way—those clinging to the cliffsides in Skurusundet and those on little skerries further out. (I reflected that while we passed forested islands, wide straits, and glacier-worn cliffs, what attracted our eyes were the signs of other humans, their abodes and vessels.)

Eventually we arrived at Gruvbryggan on Utö. Lunch was overdue, so we walked up the hill to Utö Värdshus. We were a bit wary after our experiences the preceding day, but we were courteously received by the maître d' and escorted to what we realised was probably the table with the best view of the sea. An unflappable waitress, named Niki according to her name badge, took our orders and soon returned with some very good food. It deserved to be accompanied by dessert and it still worked out considerably cheaper than our Old Town misadventure. Forks up!



Very satisfied, we crossed the gravel path to the mining museum to get a short glimpse of the history of the island. The now water-filled pits of the mine itself were just a few steps away. We wondered how they'd achieved the carefully planed-off walls with the primitive mining technology used in the mine.

From the mine, we followed a path through meadows and little red houses to arrive at the old windmill. The insides were impressively well-filled with graffiti from the last two centuries, all the way up to recent days as the carefully engraved dates indicated. On a clear day the view would have been stunning, but it was beautiful enough as it was.



We descended from the mill hill to the shops by the harbour in order to buy some of the famous Utö loaf. Saxaren returned and we got back on board and we retraced our wake all the way back to Stockholm.

Then I had to fight to get all the loaves into Honeybuns' freezer.

Sittin' on the dock of the bay

A friend, dearly beloved not only by me but many others, turned forty yesterday and the circle of friends was quietly convened for a surprise party in the archipelago. Like champagne-toting ninjas all converged on the island cottage where the unsuspecting target was spending the day and suddenly burst into the living room, waving glasses and handing over presents. Food and drink was prepared and consumed.

A group like this, composed almost exclusively of programmers and system administrators, has its own special way of talking, not only in its choice of subjects, where the mere mention of a software version number causes meaning nods, but in the way humour is applied, in rapid slap-downs of Stupidity, egregious examples of incompetence, shortsightedness, and inefficiency displayed for the others for comment and mocking, Technical Solutions to Social Problems proposed and elaborated. With few words, tips and suggestions were traded and arcane knowledge was passed on, keeping the networks running smoothly yet a while, holding chaos at bay. I silently marvelled at this concentration of intimidatingly skilled and bright people, invisibly doing their part to keep civilization intact.

A contingent left with the last boat to the mainland, the rest continued talking yet a while, but well after midnight withdrew to berths on their boats. A final group of hardy and close friends stayed up talking and singing. My last memories are of ”Balladen om briggen Blue Bird av Hull” being sung some time around three in the morning as I lay in my sleeping bag in the loft.

A few hours later it was time for me to groggily get up and catch the first morning boat. All alone in the fresh dawn I walked the short distance through the fir copses down to the jetty, raised the semaphor to flag down the boat and sat down on the jetty to wait, squinting in the near-horizontal sunlight.

I reflected that I was on the north side of the island where the glacial ice sheets once had come and scoured the rocks smooth, on the south side the rocks would be more broken up as the ice had left the island there. So you should be able to tell compass directions by looking at how smooth the rocks are, much in the same manner as locating ant hills or where the boughs are densest on the trees.

Then came the boat that took me to the bus that took me into town.