OLAND AND KALMAR (SWEDEN)

After a few hours on the train south from Stockholm I arrived late at night in the city of Kalmar but still managed to get a bus across the bridge linking the mainland to the island of Oland. I camped on Oland for a total of 2 nights, with my third night thankfully being spent in a warm and comfortable youth hostel in Borgholm. Unfortunately, I found my time on Oland to be quite dissapointing, with the scenery of the island being rather plain and quite drabb, despite many of the local tourist offices claiming otherwise. On my first day on the island I explored the southern regions of the island on bike. The vegetation of this area was characterised by low shrubs and dry dusty plains, making for a most uninteresting days scenery. On this trip I covered almost 35 km on a round circuit, along the way dropping in on a number of nice little towns, many of which contained numerous windmills, none of which were in use however. Apparently Oland has more windmills than Holland but I really couldn't see their purpose if they weren't being used !Still they at least made my photographs slightly more interesting. There was very little else to see on this bike ride and it was actually quite hot during the middle of the day so my enthusiasm for exploring great regions of the island was quite low.

My second day on the island I spent exploring the north tip, which was probably the most interesting region of Oland, although only by a small margin. After taking a bus to the islands northern most town I walked a few more kilometers out of town and camped the night in a field on the side of the road. The next day I walked almost 25 kilometers and visited one of the islands lighthouses along with the 'Trolls forest' and an ancient beach which extended a number of kilometers towards the islands interior. This region of the island did contain some picturesque scenery including a number of windswept plains and rocky beaches. Unfortunately the lack of public transport available during the low season meant it was difficult to get around except between major centres.

On my third and final day on the island I travelled to Borgholm, the regional centre of Oland. This city was probably the highlight of the island and I managed to get some good weather whilst wandering around the castle ruins and royal residence just outside the city. Thankfully this area of Oland was more densely populated and contained some quaint little farm houses nestled amongst the many crops and fields of wildflowers, providing far more diverse scenery than I had experienced elsewhere on the island.

Photos 1-3: Various photos from my bike ride in the south of Oland.
Photos 4&5: Rocky beaches in the north of the island.
Photo 6: Borgholm Slott.
















After my brief look around Oland I returned to mainland Sweden and spent a day looking around Kalmar, one of the major cities in the south of the country. I found Kalmar quite nice and was particularly impressed with the city's castle along with the diverse range architecture within the city. Kalmar castle, located almost in the city centre was by far the most impressive castle I encountered in Sweden and as such I spent the majority of my time exploring around this area. The remainder of the town however was very similar to other cities I had visited elsewhere in Sweden and hence did not excite me particularly.

Photos 7&8: Kalmar slott.