I've been on holiday again. With photographs:
cc-by-sa on
everything.
The track is incomplete because of power problems in the car, but
this should give a rough idea of how things went: across Germany and
Denmark, up Sweden along the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, into
northern Finland, then back south to Helsinki, ferry to Stockholm,
across Sweden and home.
Incidentally, everywhere we stopped had Internet access, but all of it
was IPv4 only. Peasants!
A technical note, because at least two of you will ask if I don't
mention it: all these pictures were taken on either the Canon A1300
(four-digit ID numbers) or the Lumix GF1 (seven-digit ID numbers
starting with P). On the Lumix I was shooting raw, and these have had
only default processing, thus the occasional curved black edges.
On the ferry from Frederikshavn to Göteborg, a display included this
unusual format for navigation buoys.
A really good Swedish beer, a mild smoked lager, which you cannot have
because the brewery (near
Söderhamn) doesn't make enough of the stuff to make it worth getting
it onto the Monopoly. I would have bought a crate had it been
available…
Sudden waterwheels make Roger jump. Locomotives, too.
View from the hotel above the
Höga Kusten Bridge.
Toy shop window in Luleå.
Furniture in the hotel room in Luleå. We think it was meant to be a
combination small table and magazine rack. Or they'd left it out in
the sun.
As we went north through Finland, the road suddenly changed from
tarmac to packed sand for about forty miles. Very dry, though: the
rear window was completely obscured as we were driving, but just
getting out of the car knocked most of it off.
Yes, of course reindeer casually wander across the main road to Inari.
Lots of reindeer.
In the Siida museum at
Inari, an exhibition about the designer Tapio Wirkkala, who spent much
of his life in the area. This includes the logo he designed for the
local volunteer fire brigade.
And a tea caddy. Because why not?
Main museum area: the natural life around the outside edge (arranged
by the cycle of the year), and Sami activity in the middle. As far as
I can tell, they've effectively steered a middle course between being
completely assimilated and completely preserved in a primitive
lifestyle: they still herd reindeer, but they're entirely happy to use
snowmobiles rather than reindeer-sledges thank you very much.
Wolverine trap.
Bear trap. Much like the wolverine trap, but more so.
Tourist trap (rather further south, in a town that just happens to
straddle the Arctic Circle).
On the ferry in Helsinki harbour; Orthodox cathedral and
largely-unused Big Wheel.
In a café in Lund, the scare-jackdaw not doing its job.
"We transport things. We don't have windows. And we don't ask
questions."
In the Elbtunnel in Hamburg. (Wildly under-exposed, but I rather liked
the hypersaturation that resulted from pushing the image.)
Detached from its convoy, or a free-range carousel? We shall never know.
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