No movie theaters in Åland

I have a thing for places whose names start with Å. Take Å, for example, which we visited last year. When I read about a group of islands off of Finland called Åland, I knew I had to go there, too. I can tell you’re impressed with my sophisticated decision-making process.

Åland is a group of about a bajillion tiny islands located in the Baltic between Finland and Sweden. It’s officially part of Finland, but has a bunch of autonomy and is in some ways like an independent country. Enough for me to add it to my list of countries I’ve visited? Up for debate… Åland has its own stamps and its own internet suffix (.ax). It also has different taxation rules than the rest of Finland (allowing the booze cruise industry to thrive). Its residents speak more Swedish than Finnish.

Åland has exactly one town, Mariehamn, a bustling metropolis of 11,000 people. It’s where we stayed, mainly for convenience (it’s where the big ships dock, and we weren’t sure if we wanted to rent a car to get to the more far-flung accommodations). Given the rainy, stormy weather we had for our time on the islands, we were happy to be in civilization, so at least we had good restaurants and other entertainment. But as the title of this post suggests, there wasn’t all that much on offer.

Marienhamn has two museums, one on maritime history and one with Ålandic art and history. Unfortunately the history was not presented using very much English. While some of the art was interesting, most of it left the impression that anyone who had ever picked up a paintbrush on these islands had at least one piece in the show.

We were impressed with the quality of the restaurants in Mariehamn, where we enjoyed three decent evening meals out. Indigo came highly recommended, and delivered the tastiest food in the best atmosphere (plus it has Newcastle on tap). FP von Knorring sits on a boat in the harbor on the eastern side of the town, and served up delicious fish and vegetarian fare. A few meters away is the glass pavilion Club Marin, which lured us (me, anyway) in with its interesting-sounding vegetarian options. The food was surprisingly tasty, although the tired decor and lack of decent beer made the whole experience merely so-so.

Up next: how we spent our one day of good weather in Åland.