Öland and Kalmar - Part 1 - Arrival in Öland (20-May)

This weekend Malmö Rugby Club (MRC) had a game in Kalmar (3.5hrs from Malmö on the east coast of Sweden).  It was an area I'd been wanting to visit for a while, so we decided to take the opportunity to make a holiday of it.  My company had a series of apartments for rent in Köpingvik on Öland - an island just across from Kalmar, so we booked in from Friday night to Sunday.

Öland

Öland is the second largest island in Sweden (area of 1,342 km^2) and connected to the mainland by a 6km bridge (the Öland bridge).

Coat of Arms of Öland

Öland is an interesting place, with many different terrain types, from forests to alvar. It is believed to have been settled since 8000 BC and has many iron age forts (19) and burial sites.

The northern part of the island consists of many forests and nature parks, while the southern side is barren Alvar with many of the forts.  The very southern tip is a former royal game park which now houses a bird sanctuary.

The alvar (or Stora Alvaret) is a limestone flat that is heritage listed.  The bedrock that lies just below the limestone and sometimes exposed, is made of Cambrian sandstone and alum chert as well as limestone that dates from 540-550 million years ago.

The bridge across to Öland was very impressive - it is 6km long and crosses over the Baltic sea.  There are also many smaller pedestrian bridges that go out to the smaller landmasses before the main body of the sea.

Pedestrian Bridge

Heading onto the bridge - it starts off quite high to allow ships under it, before dropping flatter.

A Swedish coastal navy ship travels under the bridge through the Baltic sea

Looking down the bridge towards Öland

We had a few problems initially, because I hadn't written down the address, and when I finally did find it (in an email), we couldn't find it on the GPS. Eventually we found the place and settled it.  The cabin was quite nice, but the deck was awesome - looking out over a caravan park towards the ocean with hares running past.  We took cups of tea and coffee and sat out there reading until it got dark (around 10pm). Perfect weather and nice and relaxing.

Our view

From the deck