Although we were looking forward to being ‘home’ in Gävle and getting back to our usual routine, the first Saturday we were back from Germany/Netherlands we took a passenger ferry out to a local island called Limön. It was kind of like visiting a small gulf island, with no cars, slow living, and one store that carries yesterday’s newspapers. The trip out there was nice in that it gave a us a chance to see Gävle from the water, and let us know that Gävle is actually a lot more industrial than it looks.
The island itself was quite sleepy, but with a nice network of interconnected trails and the same well-maintained vindskyddar (3-walled cabin with a fireplace) that we are used to seeing in Swedish parks. We had a nice walk around, and although it seemed a bit chilly for swimming we visited several sand and/or stone beaches. We also saw plenty of charming sommarstugans (summer cabins) and thought about what it would be like to live on the island. We agreed we would probably get a bit stir crazy but that it would be nice to host guests there.
Graham packed a nice little picnic of hummus and heirloom tomatoes and salad and crispbread, and we also got an afternoon snack of apples and some stroopwaffles we brought back from Amsterdam.
We did some berry picking on our hike around the island. We found havtorn (seabuckthorn, a little sour but with the highest vitamin C content of any wild plant according to the interpretive sign) and wild raspberries and blueberries, but the lingonberries still have months to go – they are just hard green ball bearings now.
