11-13 July: Kalmar and Flaggskär

An amazing lovely sunny day after all the dreadful weather we’ve been having. The wind has dropped at last and literally every boat has left the harbour – we’re the last on our pontoon by 10am when we set off, except for the lovely old sailing vessel at the end …

Better still the wind is behind us, so we have a lovely relaxing sail in the sunshine to Kalmar …

As we approach Kalmar, the wind drops and it begins to cloud over. This is the impressive bridge which connects Öland with the mainland; it’s over 6 km long and supported by 156 pillars. It has a characteristic hump at its western end which was created to provide a vertical clearance of 36 metres for shipping – which we easily pass under with a 21 metre high mast …

We get to Kalmar in the early afternoon – there’s no mistaking when you’ve arrived in Kalmar!

Kalmar is a sizeable port – here’s a nice stack of logs awaiting export …

We tied up next to a palm tree!

We have time to visit the castle – almost every coastal town seems to have one – Kalmar’s is well-preserved and has quite a fairytale look about it …

… as well as being well-fortified …

… and surrounded by a huge moat …

The inner courtyard has decorative walls, and is frequently used as a wedding venue …

Inside the castle we saw the cells used when it was a women’s prison in the mid 17^th century, which were pretty grim, and some of the state rooms which are open to the public. Some delicately painted wooden ceilings …

… and a fine carved 4-poster bed …

This is part of ‘The Checkered Hall’ which served as the queen’s reception room. It was fitted with its beautiful intarsia panelling, a form of wood inlaying similar to marquetry, in 1585 …

The panelling was designed after a continental model, but created by Swedish carpenters, and contains seventeen different types of wood …

A banqueting table, with a swan as the centrepiece!

This is Erik XIV’s Chamber, furnished and decorated like this in 1560. German masters created the elaborate coffered ceiling …

… and the intarsia panelling. The stucco hunting scene was added around 1570 …

This is the throne room …

… and nearby the room of Duke Erik’s mistress, Agda, by whom he had two daughters. Once he had become King, Agda was married off to a nobleman and the children were brought up by Erik’s half-sister …

The Chapel was completed in 1592. The painted decorations of the chapel have, throughout the centuries, been renovated and restored. However, in the 1970s the original stencilled patterns on the walls were found and restored …

This is Anita, who lived between 1918 and 1937. She was in military service with the Hussar Regiment until 1927, then used as a riding horse at Kalmar. After her death she was preserved by a taxidermist and became part of an exhibition about the Hussars at Kalmar Castle. During the 1990s the exhibition was dismantled and only Anita was allowed to stay!

The exhibition at the time of our visit was on the illustrator of the children’s books about Pippi Långstrump (Pippi Longstocking) which appeared in the 1940s. The character of Pippi Longstocking was created by Astrid Lindgren and at the time was quite revolutionary in children’s literature. The characters in her books were in no way ‘cute’ but rather lively and mischievous.

Pippi’s appearance was carefully described in the text, and the task of bringing her to life in pictures was given to a young, unknown Danish artist, Ingrid Vang Nyman. I can’t remember reading Pippi Longstocking myself, but it was obviously very big at the time in Sweden and elsewhere.

We’d begun to think we had ‘done’ quite a lot of castles, but this one had turned out to be surprisingly interesting.

We wandered back to the boat via ‘gamla stan’, the old part of Kalmar. These are some of the narrow cobbled streets …

… and pretty little wooden houses …

We continued through the town park …

… and admired the floral displays.

Considering we only had an afternoon in Kalmar, we saw quite a lot really!

Interesting evening light and reflections – this photo was taken at 10pm …

The following day was flat calm. We motored past this tiny island a few hundred metres away from the castle – there’s supposed to be a secret underwater tunnel from the castle to the island for some sort of defensive purposes – all a bit mysterious …

We motored along the flat, low-lying coast …

… and through a very narrow channel marked with tiny port and starboard stick buoys …

… and anchored for the night off the tiny, remote and uninhabited island of Flaggskär …

This is the furthest southern tip of mainland Sweden. We didn’t think it would provide very good shelter as it’s so low-lying, but actually we had a very comfortable night.

In the morning, the sun came out and it was nice enough for a swim, though quite breezy. The air and sea temperature were the same – 17°C – so it was one of those occasions when it felt ‘warmer in than out’ and I managed four times round the boat! Meanwhile Charles pumped up the dinghy for his exercise so that we could get ashore …

We weren’t the only people there – there were a couple of other boats with people just visiting for a walk and a picnic, and apparently you can rent the little wooden cabins for less than £20 a night …

We met a friendly man called Anders who was visiting with his grandchildren, but who had been coming to Flaggskär since he was a young boy. He told us it had been a fishing community until 1948 – you can still see the ruins of the fishermen’s cottages …

… and the stone jetties they built into the little sheltered sound between two islands …

When the last few fishing families moved away, some of them emigrated to America, including to Chicago – it’s hard to imagine the culture-shock of such a move!! It can’t get much more different!

We had a good ramble over the island – there is some sparse vegetation and a few hardy wildflowers …