We often find places on our travels that I like to wonder about living in. It might be because they’re beautiful or peaceful or both. It’s never really serious. For me, anyway. Today we found ourselves in a little place called Stavsnäs and, for the first time, I seriously thought I would love to live there. I could even imagine it.
Mirinda has wanted to see what it is like on the Stockholm archipelago, so we’d driven about an hour away from home, island hopping for a bit until finally ending up at a place we’d booked for the next couple of nights.
We’d dropped the girls off with Linn. It’s the first time they’ll be without us over night since Blockley, last September. Hopefully they’ll be fine though if not, we’re not that far away. It’s a good test.
The place where we’re staying overlooks the Baltic. Not the wide open sea though, as it’s a channel between islands. But the wide open sea is not that far away. It is wonderfully quiet. We sat on the terrace watching boats as they headed out. And in. The quiet broken only by the sound of spinning propellers and squawking birds scaring off predators.
This place, however, was not Stavsnäs. It’s far too isolated for me to ever consider living here. The road is also a single track, unsealed meander through quiet hilly country. Very scenic but not for settlement.
No, we’d visited Stavsnäs earlier in the day by following the 222 to the end and stopping when the road ran out at the waters edge.
The ferry stop at Stavsnäs is not near the small town. We had to drive back a bit for that. We were looking for some sort of shop for a rest stop. We found a bakery and had fika at the ferry stop. As you do.
It was lovely sitting outside in the sun, drinking coffee and eating a bun. Well, it was until the hail started and we were forced inside. But it soon blew away and we headed off to the town.
Stavsnäs nestles at the end of a cove. It has a museum and a lovely eatery called Stavsnäs Hembageri. The food is excellent as is the beer.
Mirinda asked the woman behind the counter what it was like in the summer. We’d had a wander around and were both enchanted with the place. I’d even picked out a couple of houses I’d be happy to live in.
The woman behind the counter changed my mind very quickly when she said the town was packed at the height of the season with queues up and down the narrow streets and hordes of tourists wandering around.
This explained why the only house for sale was very small and very expensive.
I was surprised because there’s not a lot to do in Stavsnäs apart from take your boat out on the water or take a hike somewhere out side of town or have lunch at the eatery. There’s no beach or entertainment. It’s probably the Swedish love of the great outdoors and simplicity that calls them to it.
Or maybe it’s the community sauna and playground.
Or the Stavsnäs museum, situated beautifully at the end of the road and the beginning of the water. It wasn’t open so I can’t comment on its appeal.
Whatever the appeal, it can’t be the peace and quiet because, as the woman behind the counter said, it’s very noisy in the summer.
But maybe I’m wrong and perhaps people leave Stockholm for the archipelago in order to mix with a different crowd of people. Maybe they need the social proximity of crowded towns when they’re on holiday.
Anyway, it’s safe to say I no longer want to live in Stavsnäs. Though it is very lovely to visit on an uncrowded sunny day in spring.
