Grinda

"In the summer twilight islands seem to rise 

on the horizon. Old villages are on 

their way, retreating further into woods

on the seasons' wheels with magpie creaking.

When the year kicks off its boots, and the sun

climbs higher, the trees break out in leaves 

and take wind and sail out in freedom."

-Tomas Tranströmer, 17 Poems

On our last full day in Sweden, we took a ferry to Grinda, one of the islands in the Stockholm archipelago, where Tranströmer's lines seemed to come true. The whole world seemed ready to sail out in freedom -- leaves, birds, sky, sun....and us along with it.  

Inhabited since the middle ages, Grinda was largely farmland until it was bought by Henrik Santesson, the first director of the Nobel Foundation. Santesson built a lovely villa there, but sold the island to the city of Stockholm in 1944. It has since become a park and nature preserve. 

About half the island is a working farm, with cows, goats and chickens. Fresh eggs sit for sale inside the barn -- just take the eggs, and leave your money in a jar.

Trails fan through the pastures to the woods behind. We wandered through birch groves and cliffy outlooks, winding up again in the fields, surrounded by goats. Midway through our hike, our host realized that he'd spent his bachelor party creeping through those very woods -- army style, in the middle of the night. Our trip was a little less wild, but we enjoyed imagining his epic day a few months ago.

We have an ongoing debate over which is the greenest place in the world -- Evergreen State College in Olympia, Burke's Gardens in Virginia, or a little gravelly patch called Sowers Mill Dam Road....but Grinda, with its impossibly lush meadows backed by dense forest, gave us pause. You can see why...

Circling an island, however small it may be, makes us hungry. We stopped at the house Santesson built -- now a restaurant -- for lunch. (Lunch in Sweden is no sandwich affair. Sandwiches, we learned in Rattvik, are actually a breakfast food. Instead, we sat down for dinner, round one. And what a dinner it was!)

Two heaping baskets of bread, some seafood stew and asparagus-gnocchi later, we wandered back to the dock, full of sun and cider, ready to laze on the beach before setting sail (or, rather more prosaically, catching the ferry) home.

Port Townsend Adventures

Port Townsend, WA is sheer small-town neo-Victorian loveliness, nestled on the Northern Sound. Water, water, everywhere -- water on both sides of your route as you drive up, water so grey against a sky so grey that the whole world might easily be water. There is something incredibly peaceful about a monochromatic world.



It is also home to some wonderfully quirky bars...The Pourhouse, right on the edge of town, is a bring-your-own-food bar, well stocked with brews and games, a totally new experience for me. We brought apples (Washington apples are so wonderful!) and bread and cheese, and were only a little disappointed that it was too gusty outside for ping pong.



We were only there for a few days, but the downtown area is truly lovely, full of inventive, silly, and sweet toy and furniture stores, and home to the best used book store (of its size -- can't really beat Powell's) I've ever seen. There was even a section for decorative tiling projects!



And the running terrain? The hills are tremendous; part of the town is on a cliffy craig, and part is at sea level. So traversing town means running up a cliff.



We ran out to the Fort's lighthouse from downtown. Never have I been more glad of my Virginia Woolf training: Nick asked if we should go all the way to the lighthouse, and -- despite being tired -- I thought "of course, of course we always have to go to the lighthouse when we can" and said (more simply) "yes." It was shut up, but the beach just west of it was rugged, branch strewn, and framed the many shades of grey in sight for the most sensational view of the trip. Hurrah!