Photo walk/mini hike on Kärsön, a small island in lake Mälaren in northwestern Stockholm. I wanted something relatively nearby, and with at least a chance of liverwort: sunny slopes facing south, and a mixed forest, not pure pine on rock.

I so want spring to be here. March is not spring, I tell myself every year. It is, at best, not-winter. I didn’t let myself have very high hopes for the liverwort. But here they were! Some still in buds, barely open, but also fully blooming stands.

I had planned my walk for today because the forecast promised sunshine. There was some of that, but mostly the sky was overcast and the air quite chilly. Definitely hat and gloves weather. With nothing really growing yet, the big picture feeling was dreary.

Though some sections of the path were muddy, I got through everything with dry feet. Some balancing on fallen trees was required at times.

There was still ice in small, sheltered bays.

When the big picture is dull, I take out my macro lens and look for the small things. Liverwort. Dead, fallen trees; dead, standing trees. Not-green things growing on trees. This is always more fun in nature reserves where there is a mixture of species, and trees are allowed to fall where they fall, and remain there afterwards. Production forests tend to be less varied in what you can find.

A smattering of fresh snow and brilliant sunshine – and forecasts of sustained above-zero temperatures. This might just be the last beautiful weekend of winter for this season.

I went for a walk around lake Säbysjön on Järvafältet. First around the lake, then on the lake itself. There was a ploughed skating track on the ice, which was also great for walking.

Somewhere around the northern tip of the lake got tired of the endless views of the lake and not much else and headed back for the woods. Then got tired of the wide tracks and followed a deer track through the woods, until that petered out into nothing and I just headed roughly in the right direction based on where the sun was and where I thought I saw the open space of the lake to be.

I should have aimed for a longer circuit from the start. I got back to my starting point after only two hours of walking, and I wouldn’t have minded doing twice that.

For the first time in forever, we have a clear sky. I went out to chase the sun. Which was a real challenge, because even in the middle of the day it is so low that you can’t see it unless you find a really wide open space.

I drove to Järvafältet nature reserve and walked around the edges of its fields. Even then, distant trees often kept me from the sun.

Then I remembered the Hansta hill. If there is sun anywhere, surely the top of a hill will be the place for it.

You can really see here just how far the shadows of very normal trees reach.

Two-day company conference with Active Solution en route to and on Gistholmen. The company is really spoiling us.

We spent half of today sailing to Gistholmen.

Met up at the harbour at Strandvägen and got on the four boats that would be ours for the day.

None of the people on our boat were particularly familiar with sailing, but luckily the boats came with skippers who actually knew what they were doing. We got put to work pretty soon, though, pulling on ropes and sometimes not pulling on ropes and manning the wheel.

Sailing boats are high-tech equipment these days, with all sorts of sensors and meters. Speed, depth, the angle at which the wind hits the sails…

We left the city behind.

When we got into roomier waters, we raced the other three boats. Really the skipper did all the racing and we just did our best to follow his instructions as quickly as we could, without misunderstanding him. Which we didn’t always succeed at.

It wasn’t very windy at all, but when we caught as much wind as we could, the boat leaned quite impressively. For a non-sailor like me, at least.

I don’t know what looks weirder: the below-deck room at the angle that it actually was, or seeing everything hanging crooked because I’ve straightened out the room.

We passed some narrower bits around Vaxholm, had lunch on board, then raced the others again.

Arrived at Gistholmen and did a bit of actual conferencing.

The island is a small one. A cabin village with 21 small cabins, one larger central building with a reception, a kitchen and a great hall, and that’s about it.

I was all peopled out after the day and took a walk around the island in the early evening. Circled about 80% of the perimeter of the island.

This is the last weekend of an exhibition at Artipelag that I wanted to see.

Last time I was there, I took the car. Today I was carless because I’d – somewhat carelessly – promised to lend the car to someone else, not giving much thought to how I’d take myself to Artipelag. Surely there are buses or something.

There are indeed buses, but getting there by public transport turned out to require a train and then three separate buses, for a total travel time of around two hours. Or… I could cycle there, and it would only take twenty minutes longer. There and back would be a full day’s worth of cycling, so why not make a day of it. Could I spend the day in a better way? Indeed I could not.

The first bit was just getting from Spånga to central Stockholm, which was just like biking to work. After that I cycled along paths that I’ve never passed before, through parts of the city that I’ve never seen up close. A nice bit of sight-seeing, which I rarely do in Stockholm.

Some of those stretches through central(ish) Stockholm were rather crowded with Saturday morning joggers and dog-walkers, and it was a relief to leave them behind. The cycle paths through Nacka and Sickla were even more stressful with roadworks and blockages everywhere – so confusing in places that I struggled to even find the cycle path, and a car driver, conversely, ended up on a cycle path by mistake.

Once I got through that, there was a long and easy stretch of good cycle paths along Värmdöleden, a main road or small highway. Large and long enough to give me a good, steady road to follow, with no map-reading necessary, but still local enough to be free of heavy traffic, at least on a Saturday.

The further I cycled, the more rural the road got. Near Gustavsberg the cycle path left the main road and got onto smaller tracks and roads.

In Gustavsberg I ran across a flea market. I browsed around without much hope of finding anything, mostly to take a break. Most flea markets are full of cheap clothes and boring glass and ceramics. Here, though, I found a whole market stand full of cast iron pots and pans! I’ve become more and more fond of cast iron cookware recently and added more to my cupboard. They’re expensive, so I’ve been on the lookout for good used ones. I found a good-quality small pan here, exactly what I needed.

For the last bit after Gustavsberg, I was cycling on forest paths and small local tracks.

With all the water breaks and map-reading, it took me closer to three hours to reach Artipelag, and I was quite ready for lunch by that time. Artipelag has both a restaurant and a café. The latter served excellent lunch at very reasonable prices. And cake! It felt a little bit like I was cheating on Spånga Konditori by eating fancy cake elsewhere.

I’ll have to make a separate post about the exhibition because this is long enough already.

Afterwards I took a short walk around the grounds to see bits of the outdoor sculpture exhibition. Mostly not very exciting… but I loved the Solar Egg. It was originally commissioned for Kiruna in conjunction with the town being moved, and apparently has a sauna inside. Here the sauna doesn’t seem to be open or functioning, so the egg is just a sculpture.

It’s a roughly egg-shaped irregular polyhedron, six metres tall, and it’s strikingly beautiful. More golden than gold, sunnier than the sun itself. Against a grey sky, it was like a revelation from another world. Stainless steel mirrors with titanium gold colour coating, according to the makers.

I didn’t stay around for too long, since I still had another 40 km of biking before I’d be home. After two thirds of the way, when I was in reach of the commuter train network, I briefly considered getting on a train with my bike. But the bit that was left was no more than my daily commute home, and that’s nothing, so I just kept going.

Having walked the western side of the Grinda loop yesterday, from the north harbour to our cabin, left us the eastern side for today.

But first, a very rustic breakfast in our very rustic cabin. Our cabin was also the highest-numbered and the furthest away from the reception. I was wondering yesterday why they wouldn’t give us anything closer, but as I passed the other cabins on our “branch” of the road, I saw that all but one were occupied. So we may have gotten one of the last free cabins.

Having had to walk extra yesterday to get to our cabin gave us a bit of a head start today. Well, I did have to walk all the way back to drop off our key, but I could do that without carrying my pack.

The path to the east of the cabin village passed through pine and spruce forest and was mostly narrow and uneven.

Descriptions of the route promised great views from the highest point of the island, at its south-eastern tip. We didn’t find the views particularly spectacular, compared to others that we’d seen before.

On the map, the path hugged the coastline. In practice, it was always just far enough from the seashore that we didn’t get any views. We did get this view of a small islet, with abundant colourful Sortera dumpster bags!

The path was messy. We often lost track of the markings and had to back-track to fin them again, or just forge forward and assume that we’d strike the trail again. We actually didn’t enjoy this section of the path very much. It felt like a chore.

It was a relief to get back to the central, civilized parts of Grinda.

Grinda is small enough that everything is within an easy walk, as long as you stick to the main lanes. The loop around its edges was 10 km, though.

With the short distances, we could buy ourselves ice cream (or rather, Ingrid could) at the cafe at the centre of the island, wrap the ice cream up in a sweater, walk all the way to the south harbour, and enjoy it there while waiting for our boat back to Vaxholm.

On Finnhamn we stayed at the STF hostel. Small, basic cabins again; this time without even individual toilets. Toilets, showers, etc were all in the central building. Not a problem most of the time, but inconvenient when you need to pee in the middle of night – which tends to happen after we hike in hot weather and rehydrate in the evening. On the other hand – the price included a pretty nice free breakfast buffet.

After breakfast we continued our archipelago ramble. Finnhamn was nice but we rather felt we’d seen the best it had to offer, and it was time to head onwards. I can imagine staying here for a couple of days if I had young kids, but there wasn’t that much for us to do or see here.

We headed for the rowboat connection to Ingmarsö. There’s one basic aluminium boat “parked” at each side of the crossing, and that’s the way it needs to remain, so that people can cross from either side. Which means that you row over to the other side, then row back over while towing the other boat, and then row yourself over again.

Luckily for us, a couple on the other side had been considering crossing as well. When they saw us approaching, they realized the opportunity they had in front of them, and hurried over to the rowboat. So both them and us got to cross with just one leg of rowing. They’d even gotten their boat into the water just before we got there, so there was space for us to jump onto the shore without getting our feet wet.

The eastern end of Ingmarsö was mostly lovely, airy pine forest. The paths were wider and easier to walk than on Finnhamn, which suited us rather well, given that we were now carrying full packs.

There were also occasional meadows, all with very firm signage about the importance of keeping the gates closed and the livestock inside – but all with gates wide open and no livestock in sight. We were a bit disappointed, having hoped for cute sheep, or more cows.

Towards the centre of the island, our surroundings got more civilized. Small gravel roads, farms.

We arrived at Ingmarsö bakery at just about lunchtime, with the intent of eating there. Having seen the prices, though (nearly 300 SEK for a shrimp sandwich or a salad) we didn’t feel very tempted any more. The shop half of the bakery also sold plain fresh bread, though. We had a roadside picnic lunch with fresh bread and yesterday’s farm-fresh tomatoes and eggs.

Heading onwards across Ingmarsö, we shared the roads with quite a lot of people and traffic. Here again there were no cars but various mopeds and other light vehicles.

A small ATV with a four-seat trailer passed us several times in different directions.

Ingmarsö, like many larger islands in this group, has several stops for the Waxholmsbolaget boats. One boat line goes around it on the north side, and another one on the south. For us today the north harbour offered a better connection to the next island on our route.

We got there with an hour to spare, which left us enough time for some bathing and sunbathing. The water was cold again. A minute or two was more than enough to cool us down.

Getting in the water was like riding down a slide of seaweed-slick stone. The railing was pretty necessary for getting out again afterwards.

Today’s boat will be taking us to Grinda.

An afternoon meal on the boat. Hiking makes us hungry, and three meals is not enough to get us all the way to the end of the day, even when supported by snacking on nuts and dried fruit.

Grinda, apparently, is a rich people island. Large harbour, expensive restaurants, a helicopter landing pad, toddlers in Ralph Lauren shirts.

We walked onwards, circling the west side of the island, to the south where we’ll be staying in a simple cabin again.

Our accommodation this time is the most basic yet. Individual cabins, last decorated in the 1970s, with bunk beds. Shared outhouses and water taps within no more than 100 metres of each house. You fetch water for cooking, drinking and dish-washing in a ten-litre water canister. Strong scout camp vibes!

On the other hand, each cabin had electricity and a little kitchen nook, which came in handy for cooking dinner. The restaurants in the middle of the island were a viable option, maybe a kilometre away, if we took the straightest and most boring route – but the prices and the mixed reviews did not appeal. Thus: instant noodles and tinned sweetcorn (both of which I had packed for exactly this kind of scenario) with more of the farm eggs. Almost like ramen soup.

We stayed the night at Svartsö hostel. I woke up hours before Ingrid and spent the early morning sitting in the sun and knitting.

The hostel was simple, with bunk beds and shared showers, but nice. Everything was fresh and clean and welcoming.

After a leisurely breakfast at one of the hostel’s picnic tables, we went back to the harbour (less than a kilometre away) to take the boat to the next island. Svartsö is a small island and we walked most of it yesterday; there’s not much more to see today.

The Waxholmsbolaget boats follow fixed routes, but they don’t necessarily stop at each little island every single time. This is where the semaphore comes in. That’s the round orange metal plate on a pole here: you hook it to its vertical position to signal to the boat that you want pick-up, and release it back to horizontal before you get on the boat.

Here’s one of the boats heading our way. It would have stopped here even without the semaphore – there’s plenty of people waiting to get off.

During our boat rides we learned to play gin rummy.

After forty minutes on the boat, were were in Finnhamn, our island for today. Finnhamn is a conglomeration of three small islands connected by bridges. They’re so close, and the bridges so short, that you barely even notice them as separate islands. It’s only when you look at the map to check how you can get to the best bathing spot that you see that the paths are all a tangle with a choke point in the middle.

Finnhamn is much more tourist-friendly than Svartsö. Gravel roads criss-cross the island; there are benches and grilling spots and outhouses at regular intervals, as well as a snacks kiosk and a canoe rental. We stayed on the less frequented paths where possible.

The marked SAT trail took us along the edges of Idholmen, where we got beautiful views. Like, I do realize that farmland and pine forests are also all part of the archipelago, but the rocky coasts with views over narrow straits are what really give me the archipelago vibe.

It was a hot day and the path was rocky and hilly. We were hot and sweaty and tired, and struggling to enjoy ourselves. When we got to a secluded section close to the water, we decided that we really didn’t need to wait until we got to an official bathing spot; this was more than good enough. It was a bit tricky to get into the water (and we scouted around to be sure that we would be able to get out afterwards as well). Once we were in, it was heaven. Cold, yes, but that’s exactly what we needed.

Ingrid found a shallow basin where she could play mermaid.

We timed our rest here to loop back towards the more inhabited bits of Idholmen shortly after three in the afternoon, because that’s when the farm shop would get its delivery of fresh eggs.

We bought eggs and fresh tomatoes for our lunch tomorrow. (Breakfast will be at the hostel here in Finnhamn since it’s included in the price.)

And here are the producers of those fresh eggs.

In the afternoon we walked the south-eastern loop. This was even more hilly and rocky, and somewhat less exciting.

It did take us to a great viewing platform, though. Or rather, it took us close to the viewing platform, but then for some reason there were no signs to indicate its existence. It was literally less than a hundred metres away from the marked path, but there wasn’t a single sign pointing to it. Had we not looked at a physical map earlier in the day, we would have missed it entirely. Which would have been a pity, because the views were excellent!

Dinner (and also lunch before it) at Finnhamns krog. Pizza, with a troubadour for entertainment.

This whole “going back to work” thing was not very satisfying at all. Having worked all of three days now, I took a long weekend to go hiking in the Stockholm archipelago with Ingrid. (Just kidding. Ingrid has been working until now, so this was our first chance to go hiking together. And it actually worked out well with my team as well, because the project manager is still on vacation.)

I’ve been wanting to see more of the archipelago for a while. But there’s so much of it that I don’t even know where to start. The Stockholm Archipelago Trail is a recent project that sort of packages the archipelago into a nice visitor-friendly format, selecting a bunch of “best of” islands, providing well-marked hiking trails on them, with online maps etc. This is exactly what I needed!

Today: Svartsö.

But first, getting to Svartsö. You get there by boat, either from central Stockholm or from Vaxholm. The commuter trains from Spånga are still on a half-hourly schedule due to engineering works, so we drove to Vaxholm. It’s just a 40-minute drive, which is less time than it would take us to get to central Stockholm.

Late last night it occurred to me to check for parking, which was a good thing, because it turned out to be tricky. No long-term parking near the harbour at all. It looked like we might need to park at the very far end of Vaxholm and walk 2.5 km with our packs, on asphalt. Ouch. We were lucky and found a spot in a smaller (and more expensive) long-term parking lot, which cut this walk to a half and left us time for ice cream in a harbourside shop.

The boat ride was pretty nice. The Waxholmsbolaget boats are very comfortable – like the nicest trains, except with more space to move around. Big windows, wi-fi on board, comfy seating.

On Svartsö we took five minutes to check in at the hostel and then started walking. The SAT trail here is about 17 km and is a tangle of two connected loops and a few “tails” here and there. The SAT markings were very visible when they were there, but we often thought they were too few and far between.

The trail on Svartsö is a mixture of small gravel roads between meadows and pastures, and paths through open, airy pine forest. Easy, pleasant walking.

There were several small villages on the island, various farms scattered around, two restaurants, and a general store. We didn’t see any cars. Instead, local folks used all sorts of smaller vehicles, from cargo bikes and tricycles (electric and not) and cargo mopeds to ATVs, small tractors, and strange small car/moped hybrids.

Ingrid bathed in the sea, mostly to have done it. The water looked cold and was even colder than it looked, so her swim was very short.

We spotted a lot of edible berries on Svartsö. We counted eight: bilberries, lingonberries (not quite ripe yet), wild raspberries, stone brambles, redcurrants, damsons (not really berries but small enough to count!), sloe (far from ripe), juniper. We kept our eyes peeled for wild strawberries but didn’t find any.

Raspberries were especially abundant. Wild raspberries aren’t rare in the Stockholm region, but it’s not like they’re growing everywhere, either, so we were delighted when we ran across the first good patches. Later on we actually got to a point where we could spot raspberry bushes and just walk past them.

On the east side of the island we ran across the largest raspberry patch that I’ve ever seen. Metres and metres of them! Now I understand how people can pick enough wild raspberries to make jam out of them.

More pretty meadows and pine forests on the eastern loop. We hesitated about whether to walk it or not. We had a late start on the island (only started walking around at half past two) which left us less time for completing the trail than we might have wanted. But just sitting around and doing nothing at the hostel didn’t seem like any fun at all, so we did choose to walk it all. We ended up finishing later than we had hoped and were quite tired by the end of it.

Dinner at Svartsö Bistro. Outdoor seating, friendly staff, good food, and a cute little dog running around. I wish they had more comfortable chairs, though, instead of the small cafe-style seating.

My camera lens stopped working, just like for the Venice trip last year. It’s like it’s jinxed, somehow. I’m forced to rely on the camera in my phone, and I am not happy with it at all. I had really been looking forward to taking photos on this trip, and I’m stuck with a sub-par tool.

In the evening we went paddleboarding. Or “SUP riding”, which in Estonian sounds identical to “soup riding”.

There were heavy showers earlier in the day and heavy clouds even now; even some warnings of thunder. Thunder would have forced us to cancel; heavy rain would have been unpleasant. In the end we were lucky to get neither.

We had a safety and technique lecture on the shore, and then we were allowed on the boards and the water. Initially we were all wobbly and stayed on our knees, while swarming in the little bay we started in.

We left the bay and started paddling our way up the Emajõgi river. When we had worked up a little bit of speed, it didn’t take long for us to find our balance and stand up, like the name suggests you’re supposed to. It took longer for the knees and legs to stop shaking slightly from all the balancing that was going on.

The stand-up paddling was OK, but most of us concluded after a while that the standing-up part was rather unnecessary. You get much more leverage and control when you’re closer to the water. Canoes just make sense. Some of us went back to kneeling; many sat cross-legged.

I was all set to be camera-less during this activity, but the life jackets turned out to have a zippered chest pocket which fit my phone, and I had a little waterproof bag that also fit my phone, so I could take photos after all. I struggle to get the exposure right on the phone – in many non-standard lighting situations the photos come out way too dark and I need to adjust them a lot afterwards. But I’m glad I have these.