Pedalling through the islands

Archipelago bike route offers blue sea, boathouses, and a sight of a rare white-tailed eagle

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By Anu Silfverberg in Pargas/Parainen
     
      The chain ferry rattles away from the shore at Lillmalö, almost the westernmost point in Pargas (Parainen in Finnish, but the town's population of around 12,000 has a narrow majority of official Swedish-speakers).
      We've already technically left the Finnish mainland some time ago, even before passing through the town centre of this multi-island community, but this is the point at which the Archipelago Trail actually starts to feel like a trip through the islands. No more bridges and causeways, but a proper ferry ride.
      Ahead of us is a two-day biking trip to Kustavi, another "island that feels like mainland" some 80 kilometres distant. The weather is clear and sunny, as it often tends to be out here, even when it is raining over the mainland. Standing in the bow of the chain ferry, the sensation is like being in the middle of a postcard.
     
On the island of Nagu (Nauvo in Finnish, but this time the Swedish-speakers outnumber the Finnish-speakers by three to one), you come across motor vehicles every now and then, but the deeper one rides into the Turku Archipelago, the more uncommon becomes the sight of a car.
      As you get further out, things also get increasingly rugged, in a nice sort of way, and so the best place to do a bit of high living is on Nagu.
      You can spend the night in real comfort here, for instance in a manor house at Gammelgård, around 15 kilometres from where the ferry from Pargas comes in. This involves a ride across the adjoining island of Lillandet, officially a part of Nagu municipality.
     
Usually the accommodation at Gammelgård is only taken up by groups and small conferences, but if you ring ahead it is perfectly possible to get a room (at EUR 35 a night).
      The owners of the place, Kristina and Per-Olof Andersson, are a pretty typical example of archipelago entrepreneurs: an urban couple who one day decided to drop everything, to sell up, buy themselves a disused old people's home in the islands, and fix it up.
     
Anyone looking for nightlife in the archipelago can generally find it at one or other of the guest harbours, used by the yachting fraternity. But for now it is still quiet at the Nagu mooring. The boats that are tied up rock gently in the shallow water.
      Oh, hang on. People. An elderly couple walking along the shoreline.
      Marketta and Wolfgang Pfister from Bonn in Germany have come to Nagu for a couple of days. "We were supposed to go to the Åland Islands, but then it turned out that there is a bus connection out into the archipelago. We thought the whole idea was so exotic, we'd better try it out", explains Marketta Pfister.
      The couple warmly recommend the smoked fish in the harbour. Trimmings to go with it can be had from the hardware store "Korv och Spik" - they also sell foodstuffs, apparently.
      Well they would, but they seem already to be closed up for the day.
     
The restaurant L'Escale offers a decent à la carte menu, white linen tablecloths, and a strong and mostly French wine-list that even boasts a 1986 Château Margaux, though at a terrifying price.
      Whitefish (sea-caught) with a dill pesto coating (EUR 17.50) and fried perch in a mustard sauce (EUR 21.50), please! .
      Later on, the evening's entertainment continues in the old steamboat S/S Najaden , moored close by. This after-sail bar is often packed, but it is early in the season and the place is quiet tonight. Still, who cares, when the sun sets over the sea and several hundred islands and skerries, and when the restaurant's pizza chef tinkles the ivories of an electric piano with the theme music from Titanic.
     
It is around 7 a.m. when the gravel first crunches under our bicycle tyres the next morning.
      You have to be up betimes in Nagu, because the last ferry over from Houtskär (yes, it's technically Houtskari in Finnish, but here the Swedish-speakers dominate so much that this is the only monolingual community in the Turku Archipelago, with Swedish as the official language) to our overnight stop in Iniö leaves already at 2 in the afternoon.
      The day promises to be quite exciting. Are we going to make it? Is it going to rain? Are we going to see any wildlife along the way?
      Certainly we are not going to see much traffic; there are fewer and fewer cars about now, and from Korpo (Korppoo) onwards we have the road to ourselves.
     
On Houtskär the Archipalego Trail hugs the coastline for long sections. The landscape is romantic with a capital R: waving yellow fields of hay, deep blue water, dappled light filtering through the early summer leaves.
      Swans are billing and cooing just offshore, probably because in scenery like this there isn't much else they could do. At journey's end, boathouses line the shore, where we encounter two youths on bikes, waiting for the chain-ferry just as we are.
      The boys, Max Leminen and Markus Lankinen, tell us they are on their first trip on the Trail. Max's mother biked here when she was young, and the boys have decided to go one better: they will be continuing their journey by the island-hopping local ferries all the way to Mariehamn on the "mainland" of the Åland.Islands.
      They've just finished another year of comprehensive school, and they have a tent along with them. "Our budget is around 20 euros a day", Markus says.
     
You can get by in the islands without spending a fortune. "Yeah, what are we going to spend it on here?" comments Max.
      Transport is not a big cost-item: the yellow chain-ferries between the islands are free, as they are regarded as an extension of the public highway. The larger white-hulled vessels are not exactly expensive, either.
      The boys, too, make it to the Iniö ferry landing at Mossala in time.
      As we wait for the vessel to come in, we sit down on the terrace at Café Eik and have some whitefish soup and then grab some rays in the yard outside.
     
"White-tailed eagle! There!" On the deck of the M/S Antonia , the wind is so strong you have to lean into it to stay upright. Some city folks point towards the sky.
      The manager of the Antonia's café Per-Erik Finnberg tells us that it isn't so very long ago that he saw a flock of nine white-tailed eagles on the crossing to Iniö. And in the winter, five deer ran along the edge of the ice the whole way in front of the ship. You can see seals here, too.
      On this trip, the Antonia is carrying a rather meagre six bikes and three cars. The vessel can take 27 cars and half a dozen, but the season has not properly started yet.
     
On Iniö, there are worries over whether this summer will bring enough guests.
      At the Dalen ferry landing in the south of the island, one landowner has complained about the annoyance brought by visitors along his 20-metre stretch of the road, and the ferry traffic is currently interrupted because of the dispute.
      Earlier the Archipelago Trail route went through the entire island (or islands) of Iniö, but now the ferries all arrive and leave from the one port. Those who live by tourism are naturally alarmed at the lack of through traffic.
     
"Our tourism trump-card here on Iniö is that we don't have anything", declares Kari Heinonen in the courtyard of Bergshagen, a B&B agritourism establishment on Jumo, one of the Iniö islands.
      We plan to sleep over at the farm, in a small former storehouse building in the yard (EUR 33.00).
      Heinonen is right about the "nothing".
      In the archipelago you are not going to find seaside discos, arcades, and water parks. There's plenty to do, however: fishing, kayaking, tramping on nature paths, and looking at old stone churches. But the best thing of all is just hanging out and being.
     
The atmosphere on Iniö is as if we were out in the far reaches of the archipelago. The water is crystal clear and a Midsummer pole, ready for decoration, stands on the hill next to the open-air dancefloor. There are hazel bushes by the roadside, and over there a fine stand of ash trees. "Huh, they grow round here like weeds", snorts Heinonen.
      At dinner, the mood is different from on Nagu. At the small Café Alppila on Jumo, the owner Liisa Pöyli says that there are eggs, cheese, and vegetables in the fridge.
      "Shall I make an omelette?"
      After food, we feel pleasantly drowsy. So much so that sleep comes more or less before the head hits the pillow.
     
Breakfast is served in the 200-year-old main building at Bergshagen. Porridge and black bread taste good. By this stage anyone has already fallen bigtime for the dark archipelago bread, the mysterious production process of which takes three whole days. Fortunately we know we can get more from ferry on the 25-minute crossing to Kustavi.
      Over on the Kustavi side, the landscape gradually acclimatises one to the thought that the archipelago has been left behind, though this, too, is another island. Seagulls can still be seen on the fields, but the sea-breeze has dropped away. Pedalling brings on a sweat.
      Finally we pass two signs on the road that indicate our trip will soon be at an end. The first warns of a popular crossing-point for elk, and the second says it is 2 kilometres to the centre of the parish of Kustavi - Gustavs in Swedish, after King Gustavus III of Sweden (1746-92), who founded the place when he approved the building of a church here in 1783.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 11.6.2005

More on this subject:
 FACTFILE: You don't need your own boat

Links:
  The Turku Archipelago
  Gammelgård, Nagu
  L´Escale
  Café Eik, Houtskär (Mossala)
  Bergshagen, Iniö (Jumo)
  Café Alppila, Iniö (Jumo)
  Rengastie (Archipelago Trail)
  Ferry Routes in Finland (click on map to zoom)

ANU SILFVERBERG / Helsingin Sanomat
nyt@hs.fi