Time to hop on ! Meet the cruise's crew 🚐

October 4, 2021

So ! A historical-cultural-musical trip is starting around the Batlic Sea ! Yes, you knew.

But who exactly is taking part ? Good question. Here at Ukulele Road Trips, we’ve got you covered.

Here’s the gang:

THE VAN

It’s know by many names: Blue Steel by the previous owner (not a Zoolander reference - I asked), Fordy-ford sometimes, and it could even be called the Balt-mobile considering where it’s headed.

But we refer to it more prosaically as ‘The VAN’. It is. It’s the van !

The Van already on the trip’s next destination: Gotland’s isle of Fårö — The Van already on the trip’s next destination: **Gotland’s** isle of **Fårö**

A 2010 Ford transit T260 in case you’re into those kinds of numbers.

It’s very friendly, and patient during long stops. An ideal character for one such musical tour. Also, it lets us sleep in it, which is very kind.

The Victoria Tenor CEQ Ukulele

I like your shape and I like your curves,

Victoria, you are a ukulele.

I’ve packed you in the van next to the preserves,

We’ll sing and dance on islands gaily.

Dm, first chord in the verse of “On this Island (Öland’s Visa )”

A striking match: This Flight uke struck the right note, and our collaboration seems to strike a right chord - & sometimes more than one !

CEQ means it can add special effects to your playing without plugging it in. Baltic magic.

BEN

Yes, somebody needs to do most of the driving and write & sing the songs. That’s where I come in. Hi ! I’m Ben.

Here’s a mildly odd picture of me grinn-singing in front of a windmill on Öland:

*“Caught wind of a good mill in the area…”*

Did you know that around the mid-1800s, Öland had about 2000 windmills ? Crazy - it’s pretty small you know.

Each farm had its own windmill. And there’s still 355 on the thin Ö today. None that I’ve seen are still turning and milling though.

They are very pretty but not practical to travel with.

A SECOND DRIVER AND A PASSENGER

They’re in that picture at the top, maybe you noticed. They’re pretty low-key.

One is very sweet and gets cranky when hungry, and the other one is a young child.

THE SOPRANO TRAVEL UKE

All ukes are travel ukes if you can fit them in a van.

This soprano is also a travel uke by name: Flight TUC-35 travel ukulele.

It has a slighlty longer neck, and got the nod from the rest of the team because it’s good-looking and is the right colour: dark blue !

The colour theme of the trip !

It’s made of mostly plastic which is different:, and much better as a mace if you’re in a battle.

Speaking of which:

Öland AND THE IRON AGE

The Iron Age is a nifty term to say from 1200B.C. to the 6th Century. And Öland and its inhabitants have been pretty busy defending themselves over the years: having all your neighbours of the Western Baltic coasts sail by is an incentive for them to come and have a closer look !

Meaning that today, the other architechtural feature of Öland apart from the relatively recent mills, are the foundations of old Iron Age fortresses.

These are the ex-sites of mostly everyday life, but some dramatic events punctuate their history.

Most remarkable in my eyes are the beauty and intricacy of some of the jewellery found there. Completely goes against (maybe) some ideas we have about these times. Even if they were mixed in with the sight of an awful attack.

One of these fortresses on Öland has been rebuilt and redsigned: Eketorp. It’s partly guesswork but it gives the visitor an idea:

Two peasants and the local King enjoy the sunshine (colorised - circa 496 A.D.)

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The land on the Ö of Öland - Sweden

September 24, 2021

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.

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.