Here is the
playlist I
have been listening to during the journey Tuesday 26 July 2005
Carrying my big backpack, which may
look light
but will score 17 good kg at the check-in, and the small one, which
feels like
stone-filled, I get to the airport and end up after the inevitable
Italian dummies family (a couple of oafs with two pests) who prove to
be able to block the queue for no less than a quarter with the silliest
questions, but eventually I get on board
Corrections and comments are welcome: send them by e-mail or drop me a line here.
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page.
Rome - Copenhagen
Pictures
The plane flies over Berlin, at least covered
by clouds, and I get the
blues. Give me a parachute, I want to leap out! Or rather give me none,
I leap without it.
In Copenhagen the air is pleasantly cooler. At
first I feel a bit
goofy, due to language, currency and transports, but it doesn't
take long
to reach the hostel (just for a change respect the last time, I head
for the Copenhagen Sleep-In, nearby Triangeln, just past the Sortedams
Sø), where I run up against some youth from Udine. With a
bit of
trouble I obtain an upper bed (the lower ones look rather like
catacombs), leave the bulk of my luggage in a lock at the dorm (a huge
shed divided by plywood walls and curtains, looking quite similar to
the temporary accommodation given to earthquake victims in Italy, where
they are usually left for years), eat some of the supplies I have
brought and set out to the city centre. On the wide roads few cars are
to be seen, many bikes and even more joggers. Look how clever these
Danes are: all this healthy sport and unhealthy fun. I wander on the Castle bastions,
under
the indifferent looks of all the fitness athletes, and feel misplaced.
I soon resign myself to using English: Danes do
really sound like they
have a hot potato in their mouth, and I cannot rely too much on my
knowledge of Swedish, unless for written things.
Some vaguely artistic writings on the walls make me
think of
Berlin though,
where there's no point in shooting pictures, for art is alive, an
attitude, not a shape framed in a product to be consumed.
The stroll cannot end without a Hoegaarden in my
favourite place
(actually the only one I know), a small and quiet pub in the
Sværtevej dedicated to the Danish (but Norwegian-born) poet Johan
Herman Wessel, who used to dwell in the building for some time.
Nyhavn,
Strøget and Kongens
Nytorv are packed with tourists as usual, and I stop just for a
couple of photos to the canal and the square, before pointing at
Amalienborg, where the camera batteries (all of them, including the
spare ones) let me down. And I'll even have to carry them along for the
whole trip, being expensive rechargeable ones. A good start...
After a restless, sweaty night in the dorm, I
wake up
early to set out towards Østerport train station, whence a train
takes me straight to Malmö. Here I'll be able to switch off from
English, or at least so do I hope.
Wednesday 27 July 2005
Copenhagen - Malmö - Växjö - Korrö
Pictures (Copenhagen
first set)
Pictures (Korrö)
Sven's
Korrö pictures
At Malmö station I spot an automat and take my
tickets, which I'd
bought on the
internet. Scandinavian efficiency allows you, nearly binds you, to plan
your trip in advance (the tickets were quite cheaper than what I'd pay
for them now, and the system is indeed quite practical), but to take
your ticket you need to be on Swedish land. Hence the stop in
Malmö.
Always with my bags on, I exploit these lean two
hours for a quick sunny tour
of the city (well, a nice one), stopping by a supermarket to buy some
food, and end up sitting at the station café with a hot cup of
tea and looking around quite
perplexed, wondering what am I doing here, less for any Chatwin-like
restlessness than for an all-Italian tendency to immobility.
On the train, sitting in front of me (I was
obviously allowed to choose my
seat, with plenty of options, at the booking time) are a totally
Swedish daddy and two daughters, making a hell of a noise when they
are not reading a book on dinosaurs. I wonder whether even young brats
are nice here.
Mindful of last year's experience (in Korrö you
won't find the
shadow of a shop) I buy some more food in Växjö, then hop on
the bus driving through the wood, eavesdropping bits of conversation
between a Kraut and a Yankee obviously bound to the same Festival, as
well as another funny character I recognize from last year, and who
will later on officially nicknamed Catweazle.
We get to the campground more or less at the same
time,
but I can't take profit of the time spent at the reception in the
clutches of the old
fart who runs the business, and stand still instead of chatting with
the small group of half a dozen who have arrived together: the Kraut,
the Yankee (who speaks fluent Swedish though) and some natives. Anyway
we all pitch up our tents
in the same corner; I choose the Kraut as my
neighbour, resulting in an unavoidable socialization (immigrants
solidarity?): he comes from Rügen,
and seems to take life quite easily. Tja
I spend the first evening doing the wallflower in
the big hall (Logen) where
all dance, looking at the most skilled dancers (and also spotting the
prettiest girls).
This soon makes me tired and so I'm off to sleep.
The night is coldish and damp, notwithstanding the
new air matress does
its job quite well and the high-tech shirt.
Thursday 28 July 2005
Korrö
Pictures
Sven's
pictures
I wake up early, but dare not go out in the cool
morning air. When I
finally do, I come across the Kraut (from now on: Eckhard) who found a
lift from the campground owners (the young ones) to the nearest grocery
shop, in Linneryd. I join in, and we do some shopping, awarding our
drivers with a six-pack of ale.
Back to the tents, always thanks be to Eckhard, I'm
allowed to
socialize with some more folk-freaks. After breakfast, in a party of
four (Eckhard, Anders, Viktoria and I) set
out for a
stroll, reaching the shores of a dark lake where Eckhard alone bathes.
We then play
some rounds of a game, that I naturally lose. As I speak to my new
acquaintances I feel awfully inadequate. It gets a bit better when it
is found out that I can speak some Swedish (we had all stuck to
English, because Eckhard has been studying Swedish just for a few
months), if only because my effort in understanding and expressing
rather simple sentences keeps me away from the feeling of having
nothing to say.
At the campground again, I shut myself in my tent
and
begin the book
I bought before leaving (Judge Savage, by Tim Parks: I know
nothing
about it, but its look inspired confidence and was the right size for
a trip) before concert time finally comes.
The opening show sees
Sågskära, hosting among the others Magnus Gustafsson and
Ulrika Gunnarsson, the fundamental pillars of this festival:
not a bad performance, although voices sound a bit shrill to my ears
nwo and then. Then come two fiddlers (Joel Bremer and Olle Brandin),
who
delight us with the never-changing tunes from Dalarna, then Kvartet
Traktor, playing an awkward and way too freylach klezmer,
totally out
of tune with the athmosphere, reason why I leave them soon to go and
spend some time
after Eckhard, who reveals me the zen way to happiness ("Life is
what
happens while you try to plan it"), then go to sleep, while the
rain
starts to fall. Goodnight.
I'm awakened by a full-powered concert, held
somewhere
around in the campground. I reach for the watch and read 5 ("Damn, I
slept away more
than 12 hours and lost half of the day's concerts!"). It takes some
minutes before I realise it can't be 5 PM.
Swedes are so fond of their own traditions that
during these days half a dozen tunes will be played, on and on, without
much variation: among the most
populars, which I have been able to dig out rummaging the Folkets Hus archives, and from
the praiseworthy
page of a German girl who also was in Korrö, the Polska
efter Juringius, from Småland (the region we stand on),
and Earworm n.1 above all, then the Polska
efter Anders Petter Dufva,
a Slängpolska,
a Schottis,
a Slängpolska-Tango,
possibly a Trollpolska
from Dalarna.
After an icy shower (what a face had the old man
from the campground when
I asked, well aware of the answer I'd get, whether there was any hot
water!), shaved and clumsy, I am ready to take part in a social
breakfast with the tent neighbours, where I'm invited through Eckhard's
good offices.
Friday 29 July 2005
Korrö
Pictures
Sven's
pictures
There is Viktoria,
from Östersund, who followed
gender studies and now carves wood, and always looks dreamy; Sofie, who takes care
of a
graveyard garden in Uppsala; Magdalena
and Ulrika, of whom I don't know anything; Sven,
a researcher in the university and
even too quick in solving all riddles (he saves the nine prisoners in a
quarter!); Anders,
whose
naive look may mislead, as he's an academician
too, teaches economics, has been several times in Italy as a volunteer
and always wants to borrow my towel. By the way, after the shower and a
small washing I hung my clothes to on the line, confident in the
heavens clemency; quite a misplaced confidence: as I was in the village
playing
card games and riddles, it's started pouring down. As soon as the rain
becomes lighter, I go back to the tent and try to make up by throwing
all the stuff inside, but it's soaked and it's going to stay so.
Since there's nobody who seems to be willing to join
me for a walk, I go alone for
a short and not so interesting tour in the wood.
As for music, today I've listened to a deadly boring
rock group
(Electric Folk, whom Viktoria had recommended, later loathing it),
likely invited just because nearly all the musicians also play folk and
will
performe during the festival. On the follow, Faust, an ensemble lead by
the Teuton Alban Faust, who delights us with nyckelharpa and
bagpipes, and finally Väsen, brilliant and nice, whom I have to
leave before the end to go to the Mill (Kvarnen) where I listen
for an hour to solo singings
performed by Malin Foxdal, Ulrika Gunnarsson, Anders Larsson, Ebba
Jacobsson, Johanna Bölja, Sofia Karlsson (very popular as light
music singer) and some more maiden under the guide of Marie
Länne-Persson. Very pleasant.
Saturday 30 July 2005
Korrö
Pictures
Sven's
pictures
The rain keeps on falling, meaning no shower for the time being. I
mildly
cultivate the new social relationships, the only one growing stronger
being that with Eckhard, who is a foreigner as me and knew noone from
previous times. While he finds employment as a masseur, I busy myself
tardily looking for a lift, scraping nothing but advices, and waggish
ones too ("go and stand at the parking exit, and ask every car
leaving": quite funny if it's pouring as today; or: ""tonight go and
dance with as many girls as you can and ask all of them": ha ha, Dr.
Gonzo dancing? You won't see that happen so easily!).
In the
meantime I hurry after gigs, with alternate satisfaction: Vydraga from
Lithuania bring an Eastern breeze, Traggel are nothing special,
Svanevit (with Marie Persson and Anders Larsson, who were singing
yesterday night in the Mill) sing nice ballads, then Sofia Karlsson
performs Dan Andersson's songs (quite a pop event for this festival)
charming the audience (but not me), and in the end Ranarim, somewhat
too pop in their Värttinä-like chorus bit, but on the whole
good.
In my anguish for a way out of here I have been
glancing at a family
wearing camel-decorated shirts, earrings and pendants: all gadget
referring to the Camel Ranch, that must be the one I saw - much to my
astonishment - on Öland last year. I should shamelessly approach
them and beg for a lift; but I just don't feel like it.
While I've lost all trace of Eckhard, in the soirée
dansante the good old Anders comes with a brilliant solution to my
worries: he introduces me to his dancing colleague Ellinor, who is
taller than
me, smiles embarrassed staring straight into my eyes and will drive me
to Kalmar. To celebrate such grace, I ask her to teach me to dance: we
go thus for one slängpolska, and then another. I feel
like a (badly) tame bear, but I like it. The problem is that I'm
supposed to lead, so I'm always looking at the other couples trying to
copy their moves, but it doesn't always work. My teacher soon leaves me
to find a less awkward partner, and I get the lucky chance to dance
twice
with Viktoria, who doesn't hesitate (due to gender studies?) to lead,
turn and hold me tight, which I deeply appreciate.
Between the dances, I finally get to meet Klaus,
another Kraut I've
know from the nordic folk ML. He's arrived only yesterday, so he's
missed most of the festival. He's a nice guy, and I get him in contact
with Eckhard.
I keep on prowling around Logen (the
Barn), Sågen (the Sawmill) and Tältet
(the Tent), seeking for preys to a polska, but
end up a prey myself to an old bag, who pays me compliments
nevertheless.
When I go to sleep, around a quarter to four, it's
growing
light already and I feel happy (even though at the campground, in spite
of
all these days' rain, the taps were dry, and I had to come back to the
village to brush my teeth), and hum the ballad of Fredrik Åkare
and the sweet Cecilia Lind.
Sunday 31 July 2005
Korrö - Tvärskog - Kalmar - Färjestaden - Byxelkrok
(Öland)
Pictures (Korrö
set)
Sven's
Korrö pictures
Pictures (N.
Öland set)
I wake up unnecessarily too early, and spend the
morning drying out the clothes in the sun that's finally come out,
packing my luggage
and begging for addresses to my new companions.
When I'm finished I take my final leave from
everyone and go reach Ellinor, who had been camping rough in the nearby
wood.
While we are waiting for the other two fellow
travellers, she speaks to me very quick, and I can only grasp bits of
what she's saying, like that this evening she's flying to meet
her new fiancé in Stockholm and in a few days she'll be going
(with or without him? Mhm) to the medieval week in Visby, on the island
of Gotland. We even talk about the advisability of doing things alone
rather than in couple with your partner, but I couldn't exactly point
out the details.
Thus begins our trip, on an old light blue Saab,
with Ellinor and two more
girls, Klara and Hilde, who live in Färjestaden, just on the
island of Öland where I'm heading too.
In the car I just can't keep after the conversation,
and I only get words flashing through my ears. I console myself,
reminding how it was the same with
English, many years ago.
Among the many things Ellinor told me and I
obviously hadn't understood, there was our travel plan. I'm not
entirely prepared when we stop at her
place, around Tvärskog, some 30 km from Kalmar. As we arrive there
I am touched by such a wonderful place. It's a farmhouse (red, of
course,
with white windows and doors) in the deep of a forest, surrounded by
a pleasant garden in bloom, where Ellinor grows herbs and vegetables,
with a river down at the bottom of the garden (and I wonder whether in
the wintertime is the garden at the
bottom of the river instead, as in Chatwin's Holwell Farm). Paradise.
And the inside is not less charming, a small and cosy house with all
you need and nothing superfluous. All is so perfect and beautiful that
it hurts.
While Klara and Hilde are resting on the lawn, I
volunteer for the dish-washing (no detergent, for Ellinor is quite
environmentalist and
uses some algae: this suits me fine too) and the subsequent meal
cooking: with the strictly organically grown ingredients of her larder
I am able to arrange a decent pasta, that the three maidens couple with
sallad - however, much to my pride, Ellinor fetches herself a second
serving.
I've lost my head. I've decided I want to live here
with Ellinor, cook all the world's organic pasta for her and drink all
Holland's and Germany's organic teas (I don't know why, but the larder
is stuffed with kruidertee and Kräutertee), dance
to the polska and waltz and all the other dances she'll teach
meand, and find her sharp eyes wherever I turn mine.
When we leave, I feel expelled from the Garden of
Eden, yet way more wretched than Adam, who still had Eva with him.
Too soon, too soon (though just one hour before her
plane leaves - but
she doesn't seem to worry) Ellinor dumps us at Kalmar station and
drives away. There we sit and wait for the bus. As I can't seem to draw
any money from the cash dispenser here, I'll take the bus with Klara
and Hilde till Färjestaden, get my money there and then go further
to the north.
Yet, past the nice Öland bridge, at the
first exchange stop (Träffpunkt
Öland), we sit and vainly await until we find out that no bus runs
to Färjestaden on Sunday. Klara manages to ring up a friend who
will come and pick us up.
The mishap gives me the chance to talk a while with the two, who turn
out to be nice and even invite me to stay at their place before I leave
the island: an offer I hasten to accept, well pleased to give up my
plan, which was to spend a nostalgic night at the Frimurare Hotel in
Kalmar on the way back.
Klara's friend comes and drives me to the cash
dispenser and then to the bus station. Full service.
At last I can get on my bus to Grankullavik, but it
won't go there for it's Sunday. During the three hour trip, while a
party of outgrown teenagers sweats out their excess of hormones bawling
songs of Evert
Taube, I waver on the option to stop in Böda as we did
last year, or get off at the terminus in Byxelkrok and there search for
some place to set up my tent. The island runs past the windows, the sun
sets on the camel farm, and I find myself in Byxelkrok without the
faintest idea of where to go.
The only hotel showing sign of activity would cost
me 500 crowns, then
I decide to search further.
There is a campground, but the reception is closed,
so
I walk on
northwards determined to pitch my tent somewhere. It's getting darker
and darker though, and along the road there are house gardens on one
side and the sea on the other. I begin to give up hope and call me
idiot for my unusual loyalty to the motto "no turning back" after an
attempt to set the tent next to a row of fishermen huts, where I find
out that the ground is rocky and the pegs (unquestionably necessary,
with this wind that would blow the tent away in a flash) won't even
enter an inch. Furthermore a black front darting thunderbolts is
drawing nearer from west, making preposterous the idea of simply unroll
the sleeping bag on the bare ground.
Since it's "no turning back", I keep on walking
along the now deserted
road. A couple of km past Byxelkrok, I notice two people in a veranda.
I come up to them and ask how far is Grankullavik, and as I feared it's
7 km at least. The pair are touched and decide to help me. Maybe they
are having me over, I hope. No way, they are ringing up a landlord down
at the harbour, and so I resign myself and walk the 2 km back till the
Hamnkrog, a sort of family run motel. The owners are still partying,
they insist that I should eat something too, but the only thing I want
it a hot shower and a bed (which will cost me 395 crowns, but I have no
choice). I finally lay me down to sleep and dream of all the people
I've med in these days. During the night I can hear the rain on the
window and I cheer up for not being out there to soak.
Monday 1 August 2005
Byxelkrok - Grankullavik - Trollskogen - Ängjärnsudden -
Fagerrör - Grankullavik (Ölands norröstra udde:
Öland northeastern cape)
Pictures
I enjoy one more hot shower, then go and ask the landlord where the bus
stop is, scraping up the promise of a lift till Grankullavik in one
hour. The rain falls hard while I drink my tea, then the pouring
ceases, still remaining a low and grey sky above the harbour as I walk
around in the
deafening whistle and roar of the ropes blown by the wind. At the ICA I
buy 3
bananas ("We have no more bananas", Audrey
Hepburn to Humphrey Bogart, Sabrina, 1954), for those I had
I forgot,
altogether with apples and carrots, at Ellinor's place: and you don't
need to be Freud to understand why. I also take a sort of cinnamon
croissant for a quick breakfast before we leave. The landlord even
makes me a
discount, rounding up at 300 crowns the price for the room, then he
dumps me under a pouring rain in
Grankullavik, that's not even a
village, but a fistful of houses. I step inside the local sport fishing
centre, also serving as a tourist office, and they tell me that
camping rough may be feasible in Nabbelund, 2 km back; that a cash
dispenser is nowhere to be found here,
and I might want to try at the hostel (vandrarhem). The hostel,
actually lead by the owner of the konditori (the village
bakery: that's
why it took two days to respond to my fax, and only to scribble the
answers at margin of my requests!) has a free room for 300 crowns, that
I'm happy to pay to stay out of the rain.
In the meantime I make a new friend in Leo, a young
black dog belonging
to a couple of elderly Germans who deliberately ignore me. Since the
rain is clearing away, I provide myself with a rough map of the area
and set out for the Enchanted Wood (Trollskogen: here be Trolls)
and the other
remarkable spots of this
northeastern cape. It's a 2 km road to get to
the entrance of Trollskogen, thence I follow the path towards the cape,
often making detours on the seashore,
where every step is made harder
by stones and other obstacles - but I have the comforts of music (I've
dug out my mp3-player): as a start, as chance would have it, the Ballad
of Fredrik Åkare and Cecilia Lind, then Bei
Mir Bistu Shein and Laat me niet alleen / Ne me quitte pas (how can
I ask not to be left by someone who's not even aware she's got me?),
whose notes accompany
me to the cape. There the inevitable shower finds me as I set about
shooting a picture of the Lighthouse
(Långe Erik)
standing
on the twin cape.
I run for shelter in the wood, then begin to
move back south along the east coast, facing the open sea. I trudge on
the cobble-covered shore, risking to sprain an ankle at every footstep.
Past the Swix shipwreck, where I ask a young father to take a picture of me, under
an
undefeated sun that persuades me to shorten my
trousers, gaining a much Chatwin-like look.
In less than no time here I am back at the entrance.
Craving to walk further, if only not to stop and ravel with the memory
of those eyes, I go back on the wood path to the southern cape of the
peninsula
(Ängjärnsudden), alternating between the easier, quicker and
cooler trail and the cobbled
shore. Heedless of the rain that now and then falls, near the cape I
contemplate
the idea of a Baltic bath - but
between one cloud and the next there wouldn't be time to dry up.
Past the windswept cape I enter
Böda bay,
where the island's most popular beaches are. Although I don't feel
tired at all, with a
dozen km of hard terrain behind me, and fed only with the memory of the
frugal breakfast (well, and an icecream I had at the park entrance),
for prudence's sake I decide to turn into the first northbound track I
find. I enter an absolutely uniform wood, where the
compass F
gave me proves quite useful. I stop to observe what's left of a
rather
heavily built bird
of prey.
Striding along the path I hum an old song by
Marillion, Grendel: «As Grendel leaves his mossy home
beneath the
stagnant air / Along the forest path he roams to Hrothgar's hall so
fair».
Along the path stand some woodstacks exhaling a
strong resin smell
which touches me - as well as the undertow humming on the cape, as well
as Ellinor's house. Such deep, intense moments cannot be fixed
(although I have to admit I thought about recording the waves with the
mp3-reader), but should only be lived.
As the the path ends into road that will take me in
2 km (out of ca 17
estimated), to the Swedish melodies succeed Coltrane's heroin-hectic Giant
Steps, driving me away from my mood.
Finally in sight of Grankullavik. I sit for a while
with my feet in the
air, pondering on the next days. I don't have enough money to spend all
nights in this hostel (not to mention the fact that I'll have to eat
sooner or later), nor do I like it so much, yet if I wish to repeat
such walking tours de force I can't think to make it for a long
time
away from a bed and above all a shower.
Moreover in one day I may visit the western cape,
then what shall I do
all the other days left until Friday (included)?
I might head back to Byxelkrok and take a boat tour
to the Blå Jungfru island, but there would still be two days
left.
I would like to take a flight tour above Öland
- there's a small
airport just halfway between Byxelkrok and Grankullavik - but I get the
feeling it would be a short and expensive thing to do.
Should the weather be fair, I can always strand
myself in Böda and
lie on the beach. Mhm, not my cup of tea though.
Finally I get rid at least of the money worry, by
having dinner at the
restaurant, where they take my credit card and change me 1000 crowns.
The meal is not as awful as one might expect from the fried butter
smell spreading from the house. The only vegan course are "tagliatelle"
with vegetables, which may even be decent if only they wouldn't come
with a sallad. To celebrate, anyway, and also because I can't figure
out how to ask for tap water, I treat myself with a dark and
extra-bitter Staropramen. I eat my supper in the veranda facing the bay, sitting alone at
a
huge round table. A bit of a sad show.
Tuesday 2 August 2005
Grankullavik - Nabbelund - Långe Erik - Holmeboda -
Hälludden - Nabbelund - Grankullavik (Ölands norrvästra
udde -Öland northwest cape)
Pictures
From the windows facing west the light comes in, I wake up, reach for
the
watch and my first thought reading seven o'clock is the disappointed
guess that
the
only bus to Byxelkrok able to get me there in time for the boat tour
has already passed. After half an hour I get up, and find out, much to
my bewilderment, that it's only half past five. Since the sun has
already risen,
I dress up and walk around the bay observing ducks and getting my feet
wet.
Shower, breakfast, shaving and a lot of patience
help me kill the time until eight o'clock, when the bakery/reception
opens.
I buy a Berliner
(what the heck are they called?) for a second breakfast, then chat with
the landlady about the boat tour. She rings up the ferryman, who says
it's fully booked even for the next days. Still undecided whether to
stop
for one more night, I set out for Nabbelund, to have a
look (3
km there and
3 back, just to warm up my legs): it's not even the ghost of a village,
there's only a pier
and a
wide stretch at the end of a road, where a few caravans are
standing, and a kiosk that has been closed since the Vikings age.
Meanwhile the sky has turned grey and threatening. I walk back to
Grankullavik and pay for the next night, getting a discount (from 300
down to 250 crowns).
I eat a couple of fresh baked breads with the potato
sallad I've been carrying around from Korrö, prodigiously still
edible, then make my
way towards the lighthouse. Nabbelund again, thence vain attempts to
find a path along the
coast,
then back on the road, another path that
seem to go round in circles but finally ends up on a long and dull
asphalt road likely going to the lighthouse. I follow it, trying
useless and tiring diversions to the sea. According to
the guide,
"around the western edge of the north coast, the waters are of the
purest blue"; it may be due to the cloudy sky, but today the waters are
of the purest grey.
At last there it is, the Tall Erik, crowded
and not
different from its
fellows. I shoot some pictures,
climb up to enjoy the view (the other
cape, where I was yesterday, is well in sight), then I'm ready to
leave. On the way back I try to go further along the coast, but the
paths I follow end up either by lonely huts or directly onto the sea,
through a wide field dotted with large stones covered by yellow lichen
that must have seen the norsemen put ashore. I come back to the road,
southwards because "you should never come back on the same path as the
outward" (another of these silly imperatives I took it into my head to
comply with). A farmer with sodden eyes addresses me in German, we
begin to talk, he complains about all those cars going to the
lighthouse, I
am proud to remark I'm a wanderer, we say goodbye. During all our
exchange he's been holding in his arms some wood logs that looked as
heavy as me, he never ever lost his grasp on them.
I go on till the next crossroads, where I resign
myself to walk the
road northwards back home. After a while I notice a path on the right,
it won't make me save any time nor distance but at least will offer a
different scenery. Among the high grass scratching my legs I walk
without meeting anyone. The last stretch is the usual dull asphalt
ribbon.
Today's estimated km: 20 to 25, and I was even able
to burn my neck under the sun. Redneck!
Wednesday 3 August 2005
Grankullavik - Borgholm - Ottenby - Ås (Ölands södra
udde)
Pictures
At seven o'clock (this time the real time) the sky
is
grey and heavy. I end up having breakfast with the new room neighbours,
a family consisting of: a thirty year old woman living in New York
(where she's a travel agent), her son Assar, a black boy of hardly ten
who can only speak English (threfore half of the conversation is held
in English and so I spare myself from the usual poor figure) and always
wants me
to play with his puppets; her sister who lives in Lund and thought my
accent sounded Finnish (probably because I don't "chant" enough,
although I already feel like I'm overdoing), and the parents. The
father, in particular, entertains me in a conversation about the
weather while I try to hurry up and hard-boil a couple of eggs I bought
yesterday and I had forgotten about, resulting in me missing the bus -
not that I had decided where to go yet: no Blå Jungfrun, the
weather sucks and beach is no option, flight tours are not available.
Every cloud has a silver lining: while I supply the happy family
information about things to see
here up north, they convince me to head south, and even ring up to the
hostel in Ottenby to book me a room.
With my travel well planned and a roof for the
night, I hop on the next bus, which drops me in Borgholm, a
tourist-packed fake harbour wanting no further visit beyond the scarce
hour I spend here before the bus that drives me to Träffpunkt
Öland, where I'm left with four
teenagers engaged in a long distance spit challenge. As I
contemptuously look at them, among the writings covering the bus
shelter («And between the words of wisdom / and the slogans of
despair / someone's just gone and written "I'm sorry" there»,
New
Model Army, Marrakesh) one strikes my eye: «Tre saker
vill jag
ha: en rosa, en stjärna och dej. Rosan för dagen,
stjärnan för natten, och dej för alltid»
("Three
things I wish: a rose, a star and you. The rose for the day, the star
for the night, and you for ever "). Look how unexpectedly poetical
these young rascal can be!
After a 90 minute journey, the bus reaches the
island's southern cape,
entering a natural reserve with cows
and sheep grazing everywhere, meadows
ending onto the sea waters here really of the purest blue,
perhaps because the sky cleared as we drove south. I'm nearly tempted
to get off the bus here and walk to the hostel. Well, better leave my
luggage and then I'll walk.
On today's newspaper I read an article about a girl
from Kalmar who's
been travelling across all Scandinavia by foot, ski or canoe, with two
dogs, for seven months. And I felt a brave hero for a score of km!
The hostel, actually in Ås, is nice. I dwell
in a sort of military dorm, in a room with two bunk beds and being the
first I'm allowed to choose one of the upper beds.
As there are still four good light hours, I set out
aiming to reach the
sea from the east coast. As a start, though, I go and have a look at
the stone wall
that cuts
straight across the island, erected by Carl X Gustav in 1650 to fence
off deer for
hunting
(«Stole sixteen of
the King's royal deer / And he sold them in Bohenny» from the
traditional English ballad Geordie will
be hang'd in a golden chain, Thomas D'Urfey, Pills to Purge
Melancholy,
1719-1720; cfr. Fabrizio De André, Geordie: «Geordie
non
rubò mai neppure per me / un frutto o un fiore raro /
Rubò sei cervi nel parco del re / vendendoli per denaro»).
It may well be, but it looks just the same as the many dry-stone walls
on the island.
Following those that looked like paths, and are
probably cattle
trails
instead, I go astray in the wood invariably ending up before a fence or
a net that binds me to turn my back. A rather frustrating experience,
not entirely comforted by the enormous number and variety of birds
packing the sky. This way I walk half a dozen km, without reaching the
sea, then I make my way back to the hostel and crumble onto the bed.
Thursday 4 August 2005
Ås - Ottenby - Långe Jan (Ölands södra udde) -
Parboäng - Grönhögen - Gamlegärde - Nygärde -
Näsby - Ås (Öland southern cape)
Pictures
The room-mate, who showed up quite late yesterday, leaves at dawn.
After a while I'm up too, have breakfast, pay one more night (this
mainly saves me from thinking of the luggage) and by 8 o'clock I set
off. I
follow the road, then in the wildlife sanctuary finally get to the western coast. Noone
is
around, I walk alone among meadows and
thousands of birds
and a
considerable amount of sheep
and oxen, then along the shore
thick with strong brackish-smelling weed, I stop by the
grave stones called
Kungsstenarna ("The King's Stones"), then by a bump that's all
what's left of an old chapel,
and around 10 I finally reach to the still rather
deserted lighthouse.
Here I treat myself with a luxurious cup of coffee
and apple pie with vanilla
sauce, before climbing the nearly 200 steps that lead to the platform.
Långe Jan is bigger and taller than his
northern counterpart Långe Erik, and from here the view is broad on
Kalmar
sound, a sea not deeper than few
metres
for the most.
I have a couple of pictures of me shot
by some
Swiss bikers with a formidable look, then stand for a long time
breathing
the breeze. To fully enjoy
the day, I eat my lunch at the (generously named) restaurant
Fågel
Blå, picking from the buffet a selection of Brussels
sprouts, beans (maybe the famous Öland red beans?), haricots and
other vegetables, hardly cooked if any and seasoned with a starkly sour
sauce.
When I'm finished I set off on the west shore, to
reach back the hostel from the north.
Along the way I notice a funny dotted stone, riddled
by the weather, and not far from it another one in a
smaller
size, that
I decide to keep as a souvenir: it'll be a nice paperweight. Since I'm
literally carrying stones now, I pretend to balance picking a white
seagull feather
(«I
will wear your white feather / I will wear
your white flag / I will swear I have no nation / But I'm proud to own
my heart»,
Marillion, White Feather, from the album Misplaced Childhood)
that becomes my backpack decoration. I stride forward in a perfect solitude,
yelling at the top of my voice my Earworms
(for instance: "The sheep's
in
the meadow, the cow's
in the corn / now is the time for a child to be born", The Crow on the
Cradle) as I leave behind meadows inhabited by cows and Viking burial stones
and,
pushed forward by the southwest wind, I draw nearer the
village of
Grönhögen, hosting a small harbour where a storm is gathering.
I give up the idea to walk on till Eketorp, and turn
instead for
Gamlegärde/Nygärde, crossing for a short stretch the Alvar, a
rocky limestone land where only tiny flowers grow, and above which the rain starts to fall.
Under a row of Aeolian
power
stations, whose vanes whirl furiously, I take out my waterproof
jacket (keeping my short
trousers though) and go on, also because there's no alternative to get
back to the hostel. The rain is
soon over, and I come across golden crop fields evoking
the
Little Prince and his apprivoisée
fox, and finally come in sight of Näsby, a typical
linear village
with a couple of
wind mills. Instead of heading south towards the
hostel, I turn
northwards
to get to a tiny beach
where I stop and
contemplate the dark waters and the slimy mud of weed rotting on the
shoreline. No point in bathing, under this blowing wind.
Before sunset, however, I am on the road back home,
shooting pictures
at my own shadow: to this point one comes after a whole day of lonely
wandering!
A leaflet catches my eye: there's a concert held
tonight in Ås
church. It's already begun, but quickening (even more) my pace I get
there in time to listen to the second and cheesier set, listing mainly
dull romantic music.
Km estimation for the day: around 20.
Friday 5 August 2005
Ås - Näsby - Enetri - Össby - Eketorp -
Färjestaden - Vickleby
Pictures
After tidying up the room and packing my luggage, since there's no bus
running before 1 PM I set out by myself, loaded like a mule (and I do
carry stones!) towards the village of Eketorp, a fair 7 km away.
My legs as usual hold out well (and these trainers
have been doing an
excellent work), but it's the shoulders that soon start to ache.
Therefore I'm forced to stop often, and I even try
to hitch-hike ("a
feasible option" on the southern part of Öland, according to those
trolls who wrote the Rough Guide), of course arousing no
interest at
all in all these Saab, Volvo and Audi drivers who speed merrily along
the road, taking it a little wider just not to slow down. You damn
buggers!
At the end of what felt like an interminable
march, luckily almost all with favourable
wind, rather worn-out I come to Eketorp, which turns
out to be just as I feared something flashy and fake made up for
children with pseudo-medieval
dressed staff and quite little to see,
being the most rebuilt, except the four little pigs
merrily
grubbing
around. I join a guided tour (in Swedish, what do you think?), which
provides few information on the burg: the first settlement dating back
to the fifth century, to these young folk it seems to be quite old
stuff (whereas over there in Italy we were already finishing off the
decline of a centuries old empire, and further south monuments had
stood for millennia... but alright, we're not challenging who has it
oldest), then it was forlorn maybe due to the pest, came back into
favour during the Late Middle Ages and fitted as a military garrison
and
finally abandoned once more, becoming a quarry for building materials.
No matter how long I try to draw it, the visit won't
last for the whole time
I'm stuck here before the next bus. The wind blows always stronger,
getting tiring and making impractical the idea to lie on a lawn for
these hours. Thus I sit in the souvenir shop with a hot cup
of chocolate and prepare for the wait.
I don't even know where to go, anyway, since I
haven't heard from my promised hostesses, in spite of a text I
cautiously sent this morning. Yet just as I'm writing these lines,
something vibrates in my pocket: it's Klara, who says that from 5
o'clock on it'll be fine (well, the bus won't be here before 5:15), but
she forgets to tell me where. I gather that they live in Vickleby, and
of course the damned bus only stops 2 km away
from there. Well, I'll walk these last 2 km as well, so be it
At the bus stop I sit with two globe-trotters from
Iceland, fully
equipped and cheerfully indifferent to the grand vent qui vente
(Laïs with Ludo Vandeau, Le Grand Vent).
The bus driver, an Arab whose Swedish is hardly
better than mine, gives
me a tip: I'll better get off in Färjestaden, and thence take
another bus à rebours to Vickleby. It's longer, but I
spare the tramp.
Soon I'm back standing at the same bus station where
I was a few days ago,
more or less at the same time. I'd like to bring something to my hosts,
I feel icecream should do, but where the hell can I get some in this
hole? And even if I could find it, then it'd risk to melt on the way;
well, let's give it up. Sure I'm going to prove a real scrounger this
way, though.
Meanwhile the bus has come, under the rain (again!)
I
get out in Vickleby
The school where Klara and Hilde study (respectively
ceramics and
gardening) is the famous Capella Gården, created fifty years ago
by furniture designer Carl Malmsten in order to promote education which
involved mind, body and soul in crafts. He bought some picturesque
farms in Vickleby and there set his school, which still summons
students from all over the country.
While I wait for Klara to come and pick me up at the
bus stop, I look up in the timetables and find a bus that take me to
Kalmar tomorrow morning.
Klara turns up holding a white mushroom she's just
plucked, and takes
me to Hilde's place, where we are to have dinner. Students' houses are
quite nice, and small. The poor Klara tells me she lives in a tiny
room, so she cannot host me. We'll find a place somewhere, anyway.
At Hilde's place we meet her friend Malin (if I
recall it right: why
the hell am I so bad with people names?) who comes from Linköping
(or any of the many other Swedish towns called -köping:
Nyköping, Norrköping, Jonköping, Lidköping... all
market places, from Latin caupo, "merchant": cfr. also German Kauf
and English "cheap") as well as Hilde, and studies political sciences
(statskunskap) with vague prospects. Also from Linköping
comes Jens (possibly), who seems to be Hilde's boyfriend and in the
summertime sleeps bravely outdoors in the fresh air.
Supper consists of a large pan of vegetables, tubers
and greens that couldn't be more organic, since they come just from the
school growings (they've set up a self-sufficiency system here, from
the shop come only milk and flour, the latter used by Jens to bake his
own bread); somewhere in the middle there's also Klara's mushroom.
Another course which is served (well, actually you've got to serve it
yourself) are pumpkin-spaghetti: a white oval pumpkin has been cooked
whole in a water pot, then cut and scraped with a spoon, fraying indeed
in a spaghetti-way (or, rather, kraut-way). All was delicious, and I am
very happy I was invited!
As usual talk is not my strong point, but noone
seems to worry about it.
After dinner another buy comes along, his name slips
off my mind immediately, he is about to move to Malmö and often
turns to speak to me, even in an intelligible way. Altogether with
him Klara takes me around the school for a tour, entering the ceramics
laboratories, where
each student has his own table with a lamp and a lathe, and it looks
like a medieval scriptorium (and the three of us wandering inside in
the night might be Friar William from Baskerville and Adso from Melk,
while I'd be left to play Jorge, in the Name of the Rose).
Klara shows
some of her works: they are so nice, incredibly fine boxes and cups,
ornated with reliefs and translucent parts. And these are just scraps,
the best pieces are on sale in the school boutique. It's a shame I
won't be able to look at them and possibly buy some, too bad.
The tour goes further through the gardens, where
flowers and plants are grown: I dutily ask for names, although I
probably can't name but a few in Italian.
After the guided tour we all summon in a venue
(likely the only one in
the village) called Mejeri ("dairy"), furnished in a semi-Moroccan
style. The little girl who serves us the ice-cream, hearing me
mispronounce "vanilj", switches at once to French.
More people come, among them the girl who came and
picked us at
Träffpunkt Öland, whom I don't recognize at first glance,
therefore introducing myself again and making a fool of myself. I'm way
too tired to even try to follow (let alone participate in) the
conversation. Actually I'd need some sleep, but I still don't know
where I'll be allowed to lay, and anyway I sure can't abridge these
healthy youths' Friday night. To my luck they are not going to stay up
late, and by 1 o'clock we are at Hilde's place, with a makeshift
mattress
that's laid at the foot of the girls' bed, while Jens, as said before,
merrily sleeps in the veranda.
I am touched by these guys' hospitality: the house
is a clubbyhole,
and still they have no problem in hosting me; on the contrary, Hilde
tells me "när man har gäster måste man klara sig"
("when you've got guests you have to make shift") while she lays the
mattress and bids me goodnight.
I'm a bit weakened by these last days, and during
the night I feel
cold, and a sore throat growing. I wonder how is Jens liking it out
there.
Saturday 6 August 2005
Vickleby - Kalmar - Copenhagen
Pictures (S.
Öland set)
Pictures (Copenhagen
second
set)
Around 6 AM the brave Jens steps back in the house,
and when I get up I
find him in the kitchen reading the newspapers. We have a nice
breakfast talking about Italian homophoby (there's a dossier in the
newspaper about the Gay Pride Parade in Rome) and spreading sour
flavoured sea buckthorn jam (Havtorn, Sanddorn, Hippophae
rhamnoides,
yellow bush berries growing on Hiddense and Rügen, and apparently
here as well) on his homebaked bread.
Trying to make the least possible noise I pack up
and sneak away,
leaving to Jens my greetings and thanks for the girls.
It's raining cats and dogs in Kalmar. I give up any
idea of walking around and sit at the station reading my book instead.
The coast-to-coast trip lasts around three hours,
through endless forests and lakes.
From the bridge I wave goodbye to Sweden, hoping
I'll come back soon.
In Copenhagen I get out directly at Østerport
and walk to the
hostel. I arrive there to behold a dozen Japanese put under stress the
girl at the reception with an infinite rattle of questions; I
diligently fill in the form and try to look like a no-problem customer,
but then I'm bound to ask if there's a way to wake up tomorrow morning.
There is: I am added to a waking list. Since this is a dorm, I wonder
how this service works, and ask: what's going to happen then at 6:45,
an ugly big man is coming to shout in my ear? The girl goes: "yes,
someone will come and wake you up, it won't be me sadly, but a man".
Hey, calm down lassie, I haven't asked to be awakened by you with a
kiss,
have I? Well, the poor beauty probably has to stem back the flying
hormones of my fellow-countrymen, I can't blame her.
Left the bags, I let my legs take me around in town.
Along the Sortedams Sø till Norreport, then
towards the
centre, shooting pictures more or
less to everything I barge into.
As I already noticed ten days ago, Copenhagen, like
Berlin, is a nice
town to walk through looking at the buildings, but there's something
nagging me here. It's too pretty. All inhabitants are jogging, they
look beautiful and fit and healthy, girls are all
potential
beauty queens; umpf, all is way too perfect, flawless, no match with
Berlin's crooked, dim, telluric charm.
Walking on I have arrived to Christianshavns Kanal.
Since I'm here, I
pay a visit to Christiania: not unlike any squat but for its size and
prosperous business (that's what's wrong with this city: underneath
it's commercial, or at least commerciable) flourishing there. Anyway I
stop for a vegan meal, before I walk back pausing by the canal
to stare
at the colours
that the
sunset paints on the city. Between the pourings
the sky hosts rainbows
that I try to fix on photographs,
why on earth
am I always alone when I happen to see a rainbow?!
At twilight
I'm back at the hostel; entering the showers I bump into a
bunch of dire Italian youths dressing up in thick perfume clouds before
going downtown to pull blondes (right, it's Saturday night). I
keep a
silent behaviour, ready to answer in Swedish if only they dare approach
me. O filthy and vile race!
I fall asleep already feeling back in the loutish
Bel Paese.
Sunday 7 August 2005
Copenhagen - Rome
Well before that the ugly man may come and pull me by the ear, I wake
up by myself and slowly prepare to leave, while the latest Saturday
night ravers come back from their raids.
In the quiet Sunday morning I walk to the station,
whence the usual
Kalmar train takes me in a quarter (and for no more than 3 Euros) to
the airport. Here I do my smart self-check-in (Scadinavian
efficiency!),
despisingly looking at those who stand stubbornly in queue before the
boards.
To kill time before boarding I glance at newspapers
and reviews, and I happen to glance through a book about a young
American climber, whose right arm
got trapped under a rock during a solo climb, so that he had to
amputate it by himself. The story itself is appalling, although I may
guess that after three or four days under the rock the arm must have
been in full necrosis and lacking any sensitivity at all; but what is
most bewildering is that this guy, armed with a camera, didn't miss the
chance to shoot pictures of every moment of his tragedy, including the
amputation.
The plane is packed with loutish Italians coming
back from organised
trips, and of all the available seats in the self-check-in I was able
to choose the only row without windows, the one by the emergency exits.
Sgrunt! I try to sneak into another seat, but the inflexible flight
assistant catches me and kicks me back. To hell, I'll read my book and
who cares about the view, it's cloudy anyway.
In Rome it's hot, though not as much as I feared. Back home with family
my mood sinks underground in a flash.
