The land on the Ö of Öland - Sweden

 

Where to begin but with the Ö in Öland,

Ö in the fine language of Swedish means ISLAND. (pronounced like the uh in “uhm sorry what?”, or errr in “errr what was that?”)

On the Baltic Sea lie many Ö-s. They come in different shapes and sizes.

Big Ö-s, littles ö-s… mediöm ones too.

The ö in questiön is the island of Ö … Ö-LAND !

Öland ! Medium-sized and very nice. You can drive there !

In the OTTENBY nature reserve

Here’s a little pro tip, for when you want to record a song about a budding adventure somewhere on a stunning nature reserve, with cattle, sheep and birds all around: make sure you sit down in front one of the rare mud pits the sheep enjoy on rainy days ! Your adventure needs balance !

Let me be your ideal tourist guide for this lovely reserve at the very Southern tip of the island and cut straight to the chase : seeing bulls&co roam free, beautiful birds migrating back and forth and enjoying the view from the lighthouse are all lovely experiences, but what you really don’t want to miss, is the homemade crumble from Fågel Blå. #yum

At the southernmost tip of the elongated isle, you’ll find this construction. This lighthouse may seem as though it’s also been to the restaurant. It hasn’t, it seems there’s a bit of a glitch for the website with this one.

And after that, if you’re lucky, an absolutely massive bull may block the road, getting worryingly close to the blue baltic van, providing you with much needed envigorating post-crumble excitement. They are absolutely ripped.

Öland’s Alvar

There is a magical surprise when you travel to the island-land of Öland. And it’s quite counter-intuitive.

If you study the map above a little, you’ll see Öland is a thin sliver of (ö-)land just off the coast of South-East Sweden. So you might assume it can’t be too different to the mainland. Same vegetation, same vibe… it’s even got a bridge so you can drive right onto it !

But it’s not the case. In fact it’s the utter opposite. Öland holds some sort of pristine feeling, a kind of untouched vibe of its own. And simply put, it’s quite wonderful to be here. Maybe it’s because of the relatively low amount of pesticides/fertilisers historically used on the island, the fact it’s comprised of 75 nature reserves, or maybe it’s because of special untouched vibe of the ALVAR.

ALVARs are so unique, they don’t even have a translation. Basically, they’re a limestone plain (or so I’ve read) with super thin soil (one or two centimeters) and, as a result, produse sparse (but beautiful) grassland vegetation.

There’s a calm, suspended life that flows from them. It sounds a bit much, but you’ll see when you visit ! They have their own flowers and vegetation there. Try to stay on the paths if you can, as you’ll be walking on thousands of little works of art.

One of the works of art.

According to a Unesco World Heritage document I dug up online “The grazing lands of Stora Alvaret and the coastal lands have not been artificially manured and no alien plants have been introduced by man – a unique European record for such a large, continuous area.” Yes, my point precisely.

Not only that, but “The land-use has evolved in harmony with the natural conditions, which has maintained unique, natural ecosystems and species in the alvar habitats” which is very nice I think.

Away from the Alvar - Ölandian poppies in the sunset

The Baltic Trip ! Off we gÖ !

DING DONG Cling Cling !!

Do you hear the adventure bells chiming ? Finally the time of music & adventure has come round !

HONK HONK !

The van is ready too - to take us on a bright and watery adventure around a special, historied Sea.

Well it’s a-balt time !

 

The van is filled with snacks and ukuleles and we are ready for drive-off !

But what would “exciting musical adventures and new beginnings” be, without a song about “exciting musical adventures and new beginnings” ?

It’s been an odd year or two for most of the world, you may have noticed too,

with not much to play from “the new” - a travel-less world does not inspire songwriting ! (not for a travelling bard anyway)

It all starts here anew, is what I’ve heard ring true, with something borrowed, something blue.

I did buy the van, thanks to those supporting my ukulele teaching, but isn’t everything in this world actually borrowed ?

The adventure and the soprano ukulele are definitely wedded to dark blue. It’s the COLOUR-THEEEEME !

An ad-VAN-tageous way to discover the Baltic isles. BLUUUUUUE !

ÖLAND !

Where?: Orion-Cygnus Arm of the Milky Way, Solar system, Planet Earth, Europe, off the coast of South-East Sweden

And so I land, on this island,

IT’s called Öland BY THE SWEDE

AND TOGETHER, from the I-land

of sedentary seclusion,

Now on to adventure and song !

And ahead lie roads, waves, and notes yet to be driven on, sailed over, and quivered.

Let this watery musical adventure, THE BALTIC TRIP, begin !

Support the adventure on my Patreon.

The magic landscape of Öland. More windmills coming soon

Going North, Reprise - Route 1, Southern Iceland

Going South: Deteriorate or decline. This expression is generally thought to allude to two dimensional maps where north is up and south is down. However, among some Native Americans, the term was a euphemism for dying, and possibly this sense led to the present usage.

All great stories are cycles. And a lot of average stories are cycles too actually. That’s why, this Going North adventure, slowly veering its way back to where it all started, has stepped out of the Kuku Van to record, by the graceful stillness of the Southern Icelandic shore, a Reprise of its flag-song, "'Going North”.

Stillness. Scroll down for music.

The sometimes-passionate songs, slightly chaotic travels and far-too-long sentences are leading these ukuleles back to the starting point of Reykjavik, capital of Iceland. The last steps of the wintry escapade are on a most majestic stretch of the Iceland Route 1.

So it is stopping to drink from little fresh-water streams by the sea, and stopping to record a reprise of Going North that Ukulele Road Trips drive this trip ‘home’.

Above the music, and below, the drink break.

Pictured: left: a bridge and a bit of fresh-water, middle: co-pilot and occasional camerawoman of the Icelandic adventure, top-right: the trusted steed and studio-kitchen, the Renault Master Kuku Camper Van

An adventure full of biting frost, snow, uncompromising winds, grey clouds and cheer draws to a close.

An adventure that has proven with great resolve, that even where the clouds are grey, even where the storms are harsh and everything around you is freezing… well, even there, it turns out, it’s really cold actually.

Closeup of a snow flake on my tenor uke drawn by an art student in Reykjavik.

This crazy driving singing cooking Going North adventure was made possible with the help of CloudMusic ukuleles (feature three times in the video above!) and the crazy (crazy nice) people from Kuku Campers. Thanks to them. And to you for following the adventure!