Day Fifty Five Monday 12th September

Back to glorious sunshine and heat today! Having made the decision to go for the island hopping ferry route, we set off for Langnas, about 30 miles away. But we had several stops to make on the way.
First was the Alandstrafikburo in Mariehamn, to get the ferries booked. It was nowhere near as complicated as we had feared, and the young man got us all sorted in no time. We are booked on the 9.15 ferry tomorrow morning. No racing across islands is involved - I think maybe that is on the alternative northern route.
Second stop was to Alko, the alcohol shop (only beer available in the supermarket) in search of the Åland equivalent of Calvados, which we had read about. We found it. At 111 Euros a bottle we thought maybe we'd settle for duty free Calvados on the Harwich ferry next month! We then topped up with essentials at the supermarket next door.
Third stop - was retracing our tracks to the iddrocemter in Godby, to return the saucepan lid we had accidentally taken with us thinking it was ours. Oops!

Then on through Lemland to Lumperland. We stopped to look at St Andreas Church, the church for Lumparland, which is the oldest surviving wooden church in Åland, dating from the mid eighteenth century. Just by the church a track led down to a beach and jetty, with a little wooden changing hut and a beach volleyball court! We lunched here, and then went to reccy the ferry port and see where we might spend the night.
There didn't seem to be any reason not to stop on the car park pvernight, but because there was no shade we didn't want to spend the afternoon there. So we drove northwards through the pleasant countryside of Lumperland until we reached the end of the road. A ferry could have taken us over to the next island, but was on the other side. We didn't have the heart to press the button and call it over to fetch us when we would only need to come back again, so returned to our little church car park. Here we spent the rest of the afternoon reading, and cooked and ate supper. In a short while we will head for the Ferry Terminal Car Park for the night.