We struggle along on our bikes over the thick gravel of the country lane, barely managing to stay in the saddle. Phew, it’s finally starting to feel a bit adventurous! Fortunately, it’s a relatively short stretch, and before long the road becomes easier to cycle again. It doesn’t have to be too adventurous, after all. This part of the St. Olav Waterway through the Finnish archipelago is beautiful. We cycle along country lanes and through forests, alternating between paved and unpaved roads.
“Bang!” We have only just settled into the tent when a tremendously loud bang wakes us up again. It turns out that Remy’s sleeping mat has delaminated. In other words, the seam between two of the air chambers has come apart, with a bang, causing a huge bulge to appear along the entire length of the mat. Fortunately, it’s at the side, but it has made the usable part of the mat considerably narrower. Apart from being uncomfortable, we’re worried that it might happen again, in which case the mat would be completely unusable.
So, in Turku, we set out to find a new sleeping mat. There are several outdoor shops, and, as it happens, there’s also one right next to IKEA. That works out nicely, because it means we can add Finnish IKEA to our list as well. We have a slightly strange habit: whenever we visit a ‘new’ country, we want to visit an IKEA and use our IKEA Family card to get a free coffee. Don’t ask me why, because these days I visit IKEA in the Netherlands with some reluctance. It does have to be on or close to our route, though, because we’re certainly not going to take a detour just for IKEA.
Turku is a beautiful, green city, and we are struck by how peaceful it actually is. Even in IKEA! We stay for two nights in a lovely and inexpensive apartment right in the city centre, and we’re still enjoying the most wonderful weather: sunny, with temperatures around 20–22°C.
We visit the Turun Taidemuseo, or Turku Art Museum, and the Sibelius Museum. Ever since we arrived in Finland, I’ve had Sibelius’s symphonic poem Finlandia playing in my head. We are both enthusiastic about the Sibelius Museum, unlike the art museum. Visiting an art museum is almost always part of our routine when we arrive in a city, but this one is a bit disappointing. The most impressive thing we see there is a work of art that looks remarkably like our attic before we had a new roof fitted. We are now considering putting the green tarpaulins back up and charging anyone who wants to see our attic.
This photo was taken in the museum...
...and these two were taken in our attic before we had a new roof fitted just before our holiday:
I was thoroughly entertained at the Sibelius Museum:
Apart from being green and peaceful, Turku also turns out to be a very cycle-friendly city. We spend two nights there and come to the conclusion that Turku ranks second in our list of the most cycle-friendly cities abroad. Copenhagen is still a clear number one. Turku even beats the Dutch cities! Well, apart from Houten, that is…
And then we start on the St. Olav Waterway! I’ll write a little more about the pilgrimage route itself in the final newsletter, as I still want to add a few statistics and a map (number of kilometres, number of islands, number of ferries, etc.).
It’s a relatively short route, and yesterday it was already all over. We made the final ferry crossing, back to Sweden and back to the car. We’ve had a wonderful ten-day mini cycling holiday, with the first day and the final three days spent cycling on the pilgrimage route itself. On the other days, we followed local cycle routes.
And now we’re in Stockholm! We’ll be staying here at least until the end of the week. We’re staying at a lovely campsite 10 km from the city centre. We’ve taken the bikes out of the car again and are going to explore the city by bike, neither of us has ever been to Stockholm before. We’re looking forward to it!
St. Olav Waterway, a little photo impression:
