On this cycling trip our last destination was the capital of Åland islands, Mariehamn. It is a small seaside town with good food, lots of activities, beautiful nature and maritime culture. It’s a perfect destination for both a day trip or a longer stay, and was very pleasant to navigate with a bike.
To get to Mariehamn we first took a ferry to Långnäs. As we cycled towards the town, we came across the most adorable lemonade factory Amalias Limonadfabrik. There you could visit the actual factory, taste the treats in a café and shop in a tiny flea market. The staff was super nice and they let us even fill up our water tanks in their kitchen! And don’t get us started with the goods from the café – the lemonades were so refreshing on a hot day and the chocolates very yummy. After drinking warm water for a couple of days the place felt like heaven.
Finland’s been influenced by Swedish culture a lot in the past since we’ve been part of Sweden once. This can be seen for example in Åland and other Swedish-speaking parts of Finland when in Midsummer people put up maypoles for celebration, and some of them were still up. Even the flowers in Åland are yellow and blue like the Swedish flag! (Just kidding, obviously.)
Along the way we also had the sweetest encounter, when a Swiss couple we’d met a day before stopped their car on the side of the road just to give us some chocolate from their home country. We couldn’t have been more grateful and baffled by this kindness of strangers. ♥
We were surprised how much nature there was in Mariehamn anywhere you go. Amongst the wooded parks there were many sheep pastures and even conservation areas right next to the town centre. We also met these lovely lady cows posing for us in the evening sun.
There’s loads for museum freaks, such as ourselves, to see, for example Åland Art Museum, The Cultural History Museum of Åland and Åland Maritime Museum with the four-masted barque Pommern. Pommern is in fact the only four-masted merchant sailing ship still in its original state in the whole world! For an afternoon activity we decided to go miniature golfing in Adventure Golf which gave us some grey hairs but mostly a lot of laughs.
In Mariehamn there’s so much to see, that the one day and a half we spent there wasn’t enough at all. This just means we’ll have to come back again – and very soon, we hope. We took a ferry back to Turku where we stayed at our friends’ house for the night.
The last day cycling back home was the longest of the whole trip, 92 kilometres. This whole adventure was so unique and a lot of fun! Neither of us had done this type of e-bike trip before and it was so nice to be able to use solar panels for charging the bikes. It gave us the freedom to move off-grid and we were able to ride longer distances than we could’ve with regular bikes.
Here’s a rough map of our total route:
All in all the trip was so successful and enjoyable it left us wanting more – more of cycling, spending time outdoors and exploring new places. We’re taking a week’s break now, but then we’ll be taking you to northern Norway and Finland with us. It’ll be interesting to see how the solar charging works further north and if we’ll be as lucky with the weather as we were on this trip. Now we’re back to where it all started to begin the next adventure fresh and clean. See you soon!
Emmi and Joel
Our green e-bike trip 