We were so delighted by the Smådalarö Gård that we would happily have spent another day here. But we knew that we needed to be off to the islands, so after a pleasant in the restaurant overlooking the inlet, we packed our bags off and carried them over to the reception desk. As part of our tour, the hotel had agreed to take our baggage to the ferry dock at Dalarö, about five kilometers down the road. We were supposed to cycle there, and board the ferry there with our bikes and bags. It sounded like a nice way to start the morning.Unfortunately, the morning was gray and almost a little cold. I did not need to check the weather app on my iPhone to know that it was going to rain. Still, I hoped the rain would not start until we reached the ferry. John particularly hates riding in the rain.
When we pulled our bikes off the bike rack, we noticed that everybody else had already left. Still, as we knew we had more than enough time to make it there, that is, until I noticed that my front tire needed air. I fumbled around in my panniers until I found the pump that Carmen had provided each of us. It did almost nothing. And then John spotted a big thumbtack in my front wheel. We pulled it out, and at that point the tire was completely flat. I began to panic. I have watch tires changed many times, but I have never needed to do it myself. In Los Angeles, you are never very far from a bike repair shop. I decided to try to do it.Flipping the bike over attracted the attention of the hotel staff. They came out to see if they could help, and quickly figured out that if we did replace the tire we would probably miss the boat. So they offered to have one of the guys who worked in the kitchen drive the bike down to the boat while the other person rode the good bike. And at this point the mist and drizzle had turned into a steady light rain. I told John I would ride him bike there and he could take the car down with mine. He agreed. I told that woman from the hotel that John did not like the rain. "Wrong country," she wryly replied.
I did not much enjoy the ride. Not only was it wet, but trying to go as fast as I could I was miserable on the hills. My glasses were wet and there were points when I was not exactly sure what was twenty feet down the road from me. Fortunately, the traffic was pretty light. I made it on board with about ten minutes to spare.On the ferry, our fellow guests were more than helpful. A couple of them were pretty good with bike repair. They tried to change the tire, but discovered that the spare tire we had been given did not work with my wheel as the valve was too large. I noticed how narrow the wheel looked compared to the wide bike tire. We also had a patch kit, and so my two English friends, John, a doctor from Manchester and Stephen, an IT guy from Reading, cleaned it, prepped it, patched it, inflated it, and mounted it back on the bike.
We had a two hour ferry ride to our first island, Ornö. John wandered around a bit, and I mostly stayed inside and tried to do some writing. John discovered that the upper level on the boat was empty and told me to come up there with them. I wrote a bit more and watched the gray sea and the gray sky. We passed dozens of tiny granite islands, some barren, others with a few trees on them. The ferry stopped at three or four larger islands along the way, and each time a handful of passengers got off and another handful of passengers got on. I reflected that few of the people on this boat were tourists. Most were island people who were working or shopping elsewhere. They and the crew tolerated us tourists, but in the end this was their boat. And this reminded me of the similar ferry services in Washington state and British Columbia.
The ferry stops at a place called Ornö Kyrka. It is an appropriate name because there is not much there except for the church building. There is a small cafe there in a building which also houses a grocery stores and the town library. As part of our package, lunch at the cafe was included. It was still sprinkling, so we were all happy to eat lunch while we waited for the rain to subside. It was pleasant sitting there with some of our fellow travelers. It was much easier chatting with them than with the passengers on the Viking ship. I suppose that the fact that we all like to cycle meant that we probably also had other things in common and perhaps even a similar outlook on the world.
It was still raining when lunch was over. We had two possible travel routes today. One went south on Ornö towards a nature preserve and a lake. The other went north and west towards a farm and a local handicrafts store. The first route seemed closer to the coast so probably a bit flatter, so John and I went that way.
The road was good, and only a few cars passed us as we rode. We passed a number of houses and barns. I noticed that all the buildings looked almost identical. All were made of wood, all had tile roofs, all were painted a brownish red with white trim. I wondered if there was some kind of rule here, or if everybody simply agreed that it looked more harmonious with the landscape that way.
After a couple miles, we found a turn off to the nature preserve. We rode down a dirt road for about a mile. John had noticed a number of platforms in the woods yesterday and we noticed even more today. I decided that they must be something like duck blinds. He decided to climb up one.
I went up as well and we stayed there for a few peaceful minutes. John wanted to stay a little longer — I think he was feeling the effects of the Dramamine that he took before the boat trip — and I decided to push on a little further. I rode about another mile down the road before the road vanished altogether. I then wandered down a path and enjoyed the peace and quiet for about 20 minutes.
I decided I would go back and see how John was doing. To my surprise, he was not there. I continued on to the main road. He was not there, either. So I gave him a call. Apparently he had found the route around the lake that I had somehow missed. I figured at this point our chances of meeting up were not that good, so I decided to head back towards the ferry.
As I came into Ornö Kyrka, I noticed that that the church was open.
I went inside. I was struck by the picture of Christ stilling the storm above the altar, and I wondered if this had once been mostly a fishing settlement.
I also wandered out into the churchyard and looked over the gravestones. A few were new, but most were old. I played with the filter on the iPhone camera to try to catch the feeling better.
Yet it was well-manicured, and showed signs that local people must lovingly clean the graves.
I suppose this island once had a far larger population than it does today. Right by the place where I had parked my bike, I noticed a sign in Swedish that was clearly encouraging young people to join the confirmation program. Although I could not make out much of it, I did figure out that one of the incentives was a trip to Barcelona to watch a football game there. And I remembered vaguely some years ago seeing a Scandinavian youth group touring some place in Europe and that this trip had something to do with confirmation. I wondered how deep the commitment to the church was if the main reason for signing up was to take a trip to Spain.
I grew anxious as it grew later, and I decided to try to go down the road to see if I ran into John. Sure enough, after I had been on my bike for about ten minutes, I saw him. I rather expected him to be a little annoyed with me for having left him, but it appeared that he had had a wonderful time. "I like this island a lot," he said. "If it were sunny I'd probably be pushing for us to move here.” He showed me some of the pictures he had taken on his trip.
I took him by the church. He noticed the model of the ship in the corner. Somehow I had missed that.
We had coffee and ice cream at the cafe while we waited for the ferry to arrive.
It pulled up just about exactly on schedule.
Our luggage had been all neatly placed by the ferry dock. We all dutifully boarded and put our bikes on board and we felt the boat pulling away. Everybody panicked because all our bags were still on the dock! The crew seemed vaguely annoyed, but they went back so that we could pick it all up and take it with us.The second ferry ride of the day was glorious. The rain had stopped a while earlier and the clouds had cleared away. John and I went up to the top deck. We delighted in the sight of all the dozens of little islands we passed. I would happily have stayed there for a couple hours, but this was just a short boat ride. We pulled up at Utö where we will spend two nights.
Compared to Ornö, Utö seemed like arriving in Mykonos. There was a lively scene on the dock and I could see several small cafes and a cluster of houses and hotels. I knew that this was the most popular of the islands, but somehow I had already been spoiled by the elegant isolation of our previous destination. A woman met us there with a Volvo station wagon. The hotel was just by the dock, but they were there to help us with our luggage. We learned that we were in a cabin, not in the hotel itself. I was not happy about that.I changed my mind, however, when we opened the door. We have two small bedrooms, a comfortable bathroom, and a living area with a kitchen. It has a door which opens onto a grassy area with a picnic table. I think this is pretty much designed for a family, but they were not completely sure of what to do with two men so they gave us the larger accommodation with two beds. I am sure not hearing me snoring will help John sleep better!
In the evening we walked around the village of Gruvbryggan.
It definitely has a seaside holiday resort town feel. There were kids everywhere playing all kinds of games. There was a bar with a karaoke contest going on. There was a small grocery store which also sold sandwiches and gelato. We stopped to read some of the interpretive material around the town. Most of it was in Swedish, of course, but on most there was a little English summary. We learned that this had been a major center for iron ore mining in the nineteenth century. Mining appeared to stop around 1900, and the miners' cottages became artists' studios. Shortly after the artists arrive, it became a fashionable resort for the Stockholm intelligentsia. August Strindberg and Greta Garbo came here frequently. In recent years it has just been a Swedish family resort.
We had cheeseburgers — the choices were quite limited — at an unpretentious cafe. We watched the kids play some kind of miniature golf while their parents drank beer. As the evening began to darken — it is still quite light at ten in the evening — we wandered about some more.
Tomorrow we explore this island on bikes.
