Vaxholm Island

We are down to the end of our stay in Sweden. We have one more weekend left here, before we leave for Italy, and 2 of our friends (Dustin and Irene) are coming to visit, separately but at the same time, for a few days over that last weekend (Dustin lives in Atlanta, and is coming to work with Don for a few days, and Irene is working this fall in Rostock in Germany). This past weekend, we decided to do something we had not had the chance to do before: we took a 50 minute boat ride out to the island of Vaxholm, which lies at the gateway from the Baltic Sea into the inner archipelago that Stockholm is a part of. Vaxholm has been lived on for over a thousand years, but was settled forcibly by the Vasa kings in the 1500s, in order to guard the inner archipelago. A fortress was built on a small islet just off the larger island, and was involved in wars in the 1600s and 1700s. That fort was updated in the 1800s, but was immediately obsolete, in terms of the art of warfare.

Today Vaxholm is a major tourist destination, and is accessible by road as well as by boat. It is a jumping-off point for the rest of the outer archipelago, and has a seriously cute village with artisans, cafes, inns, and gorgeous, typically Swedish vacation homes.

We walked for about 3 or so hours,

and also had lunch, before getting back on the boat back to Stockholm. The temperature was right above freezing all day, with a blue sky and dry air (which is what we have mostly been having for weather lately). There was actually a puddle that was frozen, in the shade, in midday!

Oddly, being there was more like being on a lake in Maine than at the coast; although it LOOKED like the coast, it did not smell like it. The water is not particularly salty, and so you don't get the sort of salt-air one expects at the coast.