Trip to Åland

Åland - the archipelago paradise between Finland and Sweden! Around 6700 islands are located in the Gulf of Bothnia, 40km from Sweden's and 15km from Finland's coast. The official language is Swedish and due to its autonomous status, Åland has a special role compared to the other 19 landscapes of Finland. It has its own self-administration and besides this, its own parliament.
When visiting Åland, you can easily jump from one island to another by boat, car or bike.
The capital city is Mariehamn and this is where I went to with the Tourism group "Restonova" from Novia University. Mariehmamn has around 11.000 inhabitants and is located on a narrow headland between the two harbors Västerhamn and Österhamn. About 1.5 million tourists visit this city every year :-)

We took a Viking line ferry to go there and our trip took around 5 hours. The boat trip was already an amazing experience, as you pass a lot of archipelago islands :-)
We had the pleasure to get a guided tour on the ship. We saw the different room types including the suite, which is about 400€ per day/night!!!, then we visited the conference area and the restaurants. It was quite interesting to hear and see how such a ferry is organized by its staff members regarding the calculation of the quantity of water etc.

When we arrived in Mariehamn, we first went to our accommodation, which was the Hotel Cikada. A really nice, small hotel where all rooms have a balcony and in the morning they offer a good breakfast buffet. After everyone has moved into their rooms, we started a little walk through the city. The first thing I recognized was the silence and the empty streets - it seemed quite deserted. There were nearly no people on the streets :-) But as we heard later, this was due to the season, which normally starts in May. 

Our next stop was Hotel Pommern, were we also had a guided tour. This hotel is quite new as it is only 4 weeks old and we took a look into the different rooms, restaurants and one of the staff members explained the concept and idea of this hotel. The lobby consists of the reception, the bar and an open restaurant, which creates a free and busy atmosphere :-)

When the guided tour ended, we had some free time before going to dinner together.
My friend and I decided to go to the sea and enjoy the sun and beautiful view there. Afterwards we went for a walk through the little and lovely city center. You can find a lot of shops there as well as some cafés and bars :-)

In the evening we met with the other Tourism students again for dinner at Dinos. This is the "must visit" restaurant in Mariehamn and they offer delicious food, especially the burgers are unforgettable :-) The prices were also quite ok, a beefsteak burger with french fries and some side salad costs around 15-16€. After dinner, we went back to the hotel. 

The next day we walked through the forests and climbed up some small rockets :-) We were lucky again with the weather and had a lot of sun and warm air around us. On the rockets we had a great view over the island and its surrounding - I got the feeling of being somewhere in the south of Croatia, when I saw all the small islands around me separated by the water :-)

For the rest of the day we relaxed in a nice café with a Minigolf area, good music and comfortable sofas on the terrace :-)

Our ferry back to Turku left at ca. 14.30 and therefore we had to be at the harbor at 14.00 o'clock. The trip also took 5 hours and so we could enjoy the beautiful archipelago islands again :-)

I totally fell in love with Åland and Mariehamn, as it is something special and different. The spring already started there whereas in Turku everything was still grey and wintery :-) But to be honest, I could not imagine growing up on these islands, as I also got the feeling of being separated and "lost" in the nowhere. Nevertheless, if you have the chance to visit Åland - go for it!!! And make sure you can stay there for more then 2 days, take a bike with you or rent it there and explore the nature, landscape, islands and peaceful atmosphere :-)

Tack, tack and hejdå! :-)

Katharina