Trip 42 — Fasta Åland Walk

Day 11: Around southern Mariehamn to the port
Sunday, 30 June 2024

Today: 12061 steps/9.43 km/5.86 mi/1h 41m
Grand total: 361897 steps/282.34 km/175.44 mi/52h 18m

Indigo is described in "The Island Affair" as "one of the new breed of café/restaurant that have sprung up in the town in the past few years." It's now been open for two decades, and it's going strong. There are three separate menus, depending on when and where you sit, which may be upstairs or downstairs or on the patio.

Like Alicia and her mother, I opted for the more crowded outdoor area. My final Åland dinner wasn't particularly Åland — a goat-cheese-and-beet salad and baby back ribs — but the gin and tonic with juniper berries and sea-buckthorn juice seemed appropriate for the region.

The place filled up, so much that a few people joined me at my table. One was about my age; he owned a cafe and a few food trucks.

"I won't get any time to relax during the summer season," he said. "Now's when I make all my money for the year."

A teenager arrived with a few drinks and placed a whiskey without ice in front of the man, who said something in Swedish and the boy took the drink away.

"That's my son," he said. The son reappeared with ice in the glass. He wasn't a server; the boy's friends were there.

I didn't expect them to entertain me, and I surrendered the seat. I was about to leave Indigo entirely when I noticed a long line outside. Well, if this is the place to be, I should stay, I thought.

I kept finding new parts of Indigo, as though they had been brought in on hydraulics while I was eating. The thin area between the patio and the restaurant building now had additional seating, including a raised platform. Behind that was an entire dance club called Calypso. How had I not noticed it before?

By midnight the place was packed. The patio was large but there was barely room to move around, and the club was full of dancing bodies pressed against each other. It struck me was that this was a place for all ages. Even Calypso had people from their late teens to their 70s, the teenagers recoiling at their first Jägermeister shots, the septuagenarians singing the words to "Shut Up and Dance" and "I Love It" with everyone else.

I walked back to my hotel in the twilight. I considered doing the last segment of the Fasta Åland walk right then, to see what it felt like, but the promise of sleep was too compelling.

I did want to complete it before check-out time, however, because then I could do it unencumbered by my bag. The streets were quiet on this Sunday morning; cats and birds were the main creatures moving about, and even the cats were sluggish. Of the humans I saw, most were on bicycles. The noisiest human was throwing up outside the Hotell Cikada. Was he the one not quite keeping himself upright at the Calypso Bar?

A peninsula extends down from the center of Mariehamn for a few kilometers, and I walked down the eastern side and then back up the western. A red house was the only one standing since the time of the village of Övernäs, before Mariehamn was founded in 1861. Farther south was a combination campground and miniature-golf course. Åland loves miniature golf — there was another one near the main eastern marina, with queues for each hole when I walked by yesterday, and another up in Geta by the Soltuna restaurant.

I came to a pathway along the shore and looked across to the island of Lemland. Sailboats and motorboats were gliding along in the calm bay. The path was too thin for bikes, but sometimes a jogger came by. I passed a few tiny marinas, fewer than ten boats each, which served the grand houses up on the hill.

I rejoined the road and proceeded until Fasta Åland faded into a zone of reeds. The road continued as a causeway, and I'm not sure where the island officially ended, but I was close enough. Bikes passed me, headed for those parts of Åland that I'll save for another day. Cattle grazed across an inlet.

I turned around, passed the "Välkommen till Mariehamn" sign, and wended my way through a tangle of dirt roads and stables and past a flock of sheep resting by the road. By the fishing harbor, I took a path up the shore and along the cruise terminal, completing Abecedarian Walk number 22.

I did laundry at the western marina and, while I waited for it, had a pizza with pistachios, tomatoes, asparagus, pea sprouts, and honey. The flavors worked well but it was one of those pizzas where everything was on top rather than baked in, so the sprouts stuck out of every bite or swung back clumsily like the branches at Orrdalsklint.

Viking Line competes with Tallink Silja Line on the Baltic routes, and they have similar schedules but completely different pricing; for reasons I don't understand, Tallink was much cheaper on the way over and it was the reverse going back to Stockholm. So I got to experience both services.

Once again, I was amazed by what was offered on a ship whose sole purpose is to make overnight runs between Sweden and Finland. The Viking Glory has more than 900 cabins, six restaurants, three bars, a spa and gym, and a casino. There are arcades and play areas for young children. There's miniature golf for kids who didn't get enough in Mariehamn. Live music was provided for most of the day — the No Limits band ended, fittingly, with "Go Your Own Way." When I stopped in the Torget cafe for an open herring sandwich, most seats were occupied by passengers finishing a trivia quiz.

Viking Line was the one preferred by Alicia and her husband, although the book predates the Viking Glory, which has been in service only since 2022 (as people learned at the end of the trivia quiz). Alicia meets her summer fling in the duty-free shop when the ship lurches and she stumbles — almost hard to believe, as the ride was so smooth I wouldn't have known I was on the water.

The shop was so big that it provided baskets and carts. I walked through three rooms of perfume before finding anything else. I could have outfitted myself with a new wardrobe, including shirts that said "NYC" — why? But I have to give the edge to Tallink's inventory: I didn't see any tins of moose meat.

Apparently only Åland gets the perfect weather; it was chilly and rainy when we docked in Stockholm. Despite that, the half-hour walk into town was pleasant — it's hard to find much fault with such a beautiful city. The rain and the herring sandwich put me off exploring or seeking an elaborate dinner, but I'll spend a couple of days here before going home. And I shall have my moose.

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