Explore Åland Island with a knowledgeble guide on this tour from Stockholm!

Duration

13 Hours

About

This tour goes to the famous Åland Island from Stockholm. You will explore the island and it's historty with a knowledgeable guide. Åland islands is a special place, belonging to Finland but where almost everyone speaking Swedish. It is a place where a lot of Swedes go for a holiday or go over the day just like we will do. On Åland you will have 5h transported tour with a guide exploring the isles history back to before the Vikings arrived until today. You will also embark on a cruise trip 2h one way, and back in the end of the day, to Åland viewing the beautiful archipelago and the Baltic Sea. First awaits a pick up at your hotel and a 1h car ride north from Stockholm to Kapellskär where the cruise ship awaits until the fun begins for real.

Itinerary

First we arrive by the cruise ship to Mariehamn on the main Åland isle where we have a short city walk and maybe something to eat. Than we head out to the Ålandic countryside to one of the many big, old and magnificent churches the isle holds, all of them surrounded by Viking grave fields. Apart from a big Viking gravefield in Godby holding among the biggest mounds in Åland we will visit the medieval castle Kastelholm. Kastelhom was once a Swedish medieval castle where the former king Erik XIV was imprisoned with his family in 1560s, now a well-preserved ruin. Åland was owned by the Sweden from medieval times until 1809 when it transferred over to Russia and then Finland. We than visit a Viking village in Saltvik, check on a mighty Viking hill fort (Borgboda) close by and walk by the house ruins and fort ruins of Bomarsund. Bomarsund was once the most southern of the Russian navy bases around whom the town browed up. 3 churchyards on Prästön (isle of the Priests) still holds tombstones from the inhabitants here. The navy base and its town got destroyed by the English navy in the 1800ds and its foundations are well marked out.

Åland island have a human history that are very old, a stone age settlement with tools have been found among its highest points and here was a major trading center in the Vendel and Viking eras. We will explore its rich history with you and showing you the major sites with a knowledgeable guide.

Clothing after weather and good walking shores are recommended.

The 13h tour broken down hourwise

07.30 (around) Your pick up time. 1h by car from your hotel in Stockholm to the Åland ferry in Kapellskär. We take the cruise ship that go from Kapellskär 09.00 (next leaves first 14.45 and last ferry back is 18.30 local time).

09.00-12.15 (local time) 2.5h by cruise-ship to Mariehamn: a ride many Swedes do for fun, We arrives local time 12.15 (Finland are 1h ahead of Sweden)

• Explore the beautiful Swedish archipelago and Baltic Sea

12.15-18.00 - 4.45h at Åland Island (local Ålandic/Finnish time 1h ahead of Sweden). Our boat leaves 18.30 local time and next one leaves next morning 07.30.

• Be guided by a knowledgeable expert guide on Åland
• A city walk of Mariehamn and its history
• Visit one or two of the isles big medieval churches
• A Viking reconstructed village
• A Viking hillfort with 3 different protective walls on a mountain
• The castle ruin of Kastelholm (open from 2 of May - 15th of September)
• Bomarsund navy ruins + village

18.30-19.45 - 2.5h by cruise-ship back from Mariehamn to Kapellskär. Out ship leave local time 18.00 and arrives local time 19.45 (back to Swedish time zone again). Next boat from Mariehamn leave next morning 07.30.

20.45-21.00 Back in Stockholm and your hotel. It takes 1h by car from Kapellskär to your hotel in Stockholm, ca 20.45 back in Stockholm.