The ferry ride was blissfully uneventful, and beautiful. Our weather has been spectacular and everyone is remarking on how unusual it is. Lunch aboard was included in the ticket, as well as a cabin where we changed into biking clothes as we were off the ferry and onto bikes immediately, for our ~20 mile ride to Kvarnbo.
Rented bikes from the lovely folks at Ro-No Rentals in our ferry port, Mariehamn; bags were taxied to our b&b (for what I felt was an exorbitant 45 Euros); and we began the trundle up past Godby to Kvarnbo. The islands are part of Finland politically, but the language is Swedish, so we have small familiarity with the signage and map language. Happily, the currency is the euro, AND everything seems to be less expensive here than it was in Stockholm.
Passed a lovely church and a restoration of a Viking village along the way.
The lovely folks at the Kvarnbo Guesthouse (Ella and Martin) welcomed us and our bags were already in room 14 upstairs, a huge room with bath en suite. More on the history of the building later. They recommended the Stellhagen Brewery for dinner, and were kind enough to motor us over there. As we left for dinner, Ella, a classically trained violinist, was with her Celtic band, auditioning a new member who plays banjo, accordion, harmonica, a d is a great vocalist, too. We enjoyed some of their rehearsal from the lawn.
Amazing dinner, amazing place, amazing beer (and we indulged to have two!)! Got a brewery tour from Christian, but I didn’t have my iPhone with me, so pix of the place will have to await desktop computer download.
Here’s a slurry of photos from our long day yesterday, Monday, our first Åland day “a la bicyclet.”
peregrinations 