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