Branno

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Well, today we made our trip to the islands. It was really cool. We took the tram to the ferry terminal and then out to the Goteborg archipelago. People have been living on these islands for over 4000 years now. They're not that big, and they're not very far apart. The ferry ride took about 20 minutes. That included 2 stops and the boat wasn't going very fast at all. Our destination? The isle of Brann(o), of course.

There are no cars on these islands. The residents take the ferries into town, and many of them keep cars at the ferry port. The exception to this is the Branno Taxi, which greets the ferry at the dock to take the old folks to and from the boat. On the islands at the ferry dock, there are about 50 bicycles and a collection of modified mo-peds that people use to get any goods they bought on shore to and from their homes. Mostly, the locals just walk wherever they need to go. Yes, even in the Swedish winter.

The weather was pretty good today, for Sweden. It rained a little this morning, but it actually cleared up as the day went on. I braved the weather to take some pictures from the top deck of the ferry. Jeff snapped one of me here in front of the "welcome to branno" sign. We walked on into "town" and stopped at the one cafe that was open on a Sunday. Just our luck, it also happened to be the bake shop and bed & breakfast. The pastries were excellent. The had Semlor, which Jeff and I had tried yesterday at the mall. It's a traditional Swedish pastry that's a lot like a hamburger bun stuffed with whipped cream and nutmeg, cinnamon etc. I'm not doing it justice here, but let's just say it was great.

They have power and a post office on the island, but at the same time the whole place feels like it was frozen in time about 1910 and hasn't moved since. A historical brochure I picked up at the cafe tells me this island was fought over between the various viking tribes, and later between the Danish and Norwegian kings, as well as the Swedish nobles. There is a lot of history here for such a small island. Anyway, it was great to get a taste of the sea air and see how a die hard Swede might choose to live. Posted by Picasa

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