30 July 2021
How many islands are there in Sweden? The Stockholm Archipelago (Schärgarten; Skärgard) is only one of Swedens archipelagos.
I’ve left Stockholm for good. Stockholm had been my turnaround point. I will not drive farther north nor east, but head southwards again. My first stop is Söderköping, a marketplace around an hour’s drive from Stockholm. Again I find nicely coloured timber houses, a brook running through the town’s centre and the nearby Göta Canal with its locks. One lock is situated at Söderköping and again and again I find it fascinating how ships can be lifted with the help of locks.
Probably the biggest attraction is the ice-cream, though. People come from far and wide to get the famous Smultronstället ice-cream. And the Swedes, if it comes to fabulous ice-cream, are patient to queue up for a long time to get the delicacy.
From Söderköping it is only half an hour’s drive to get into the achipelago. When driving you do not notice until you get to the far end of one of the peninsulas. Fyrudden is such a place. The nearby campsite is too crowded for my taste and I turn round. All the town’s parking spaces for mobilhomes are already taken and the atmosphere there is not of my liking at all. Retired couples, TV, dog, biiiiigggg mobil-homes. The bigger the better.
In the end I’m fed up with looking for a place and turn to Grännäs Campsite, just outside of the small town of Valdemarsvik. And there I find it, my pitch, first row, unspoiled view onto the Valdemarsviken fjord. It starts raining for about the tenth time today, drizzling, but I manage to get installed before it gets really wet. And after 30 minutes or so the sun peeks out behind the still thick, heavy rainclouds again, displaying her arc of a rainbow onto the landscape. Nice.
Waking up in such a place – marvellous. Boundless beauty. Yet, I do feel a little lonely here. My Danish neighbours are kind, my Dutch neighbours as well (driving a Tesla and camping). The view reminds me of New Zealand’s far north South Island Marlborough Sounds. Yes, it would be grand sailing here. But I cannot. So I decide to leave my every so nice but a little bit boring place and head down further south. I don’t like not knowing where to stay when I’m driving on my own. So, I call a campsite near Monsterås on the island Ökna and the guy on the phone is really kind, tries to find the best place left for me.
I’m looking forward to this day, all relaxed, may it rain or shine.
A personal note: I’m writing this blog as a daily task to practice my English in times of Corona. Sometimes, the programme does not do what I want it to. So, for example I’ve just noticed that a rather large entry on the Vasa ship has not been updated nor saved, so I had to rewrite it from scratch.
As I am on my own I would also enjoy any encouraging comments or feedback (also in German of course) – which I will not publish as long as you do not give me permission to do so.
