Archive for the 'Around Stockholm' Category

24
Mar
09

Another hike on Kärsön

By Paul Leave a Comment
Categories: Around Stockholm
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The series of hikes around Stockholm continued this past Sunday with another one on Kärsön, hoping for another great sunset. No luck. What started as a warm early spring day, turned into one with heavy snowing and the sky remained gray until dark.

Lonely buoy

I went there with a friend who had a GPS device and recorded the walk, which summed up to 11km.

karson-hike

We went around the island, first going on the east side toward south. The terrain is flat in that area and gets more rocky on the north-west side.

It was very silent, so we could hear the snow flakes hitting the leaves, accompanied by the ice craking on the water around. Small joys of life.

Not much else to mention here other than someone left a grill near this tree that I photographed in my previous hike there and that Brostugan cafe closes at 17.

Getting ready to snow

17
Mar
09

Kärsön and the spectacular sunset I didn’t capture

By Paul 2 Comments
Categories: Around Stockholm
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Following my quest of visiting places around Stockholm, last Sunday I reached an island called Kärsön. It’s quite close to the city center, about 30 minutes maximum by public transportation to Brostugan bus station.

Kärsön is near Drottningholm, one of the famous touristic sites near Stockholm, hosting the royal residence palace. What made this island interesting for my Sunday trip is that it gets narrow toward north-west, forming a rocky peak which I thought could be a good vantage point for the sunset. And I was right.

The only problem is that it’s not very obvious how to get to this point, since the road ends in a guy’s backyard. I discovered later, after going around a field flooded by the melting snow, that there is a small separate path nearby that property that leads toward the north of the island.

The spot is perfect, a little bit elevated, offering a great view toward the water and the islands nearby. It works very well for a picnic place during summer, if you’re willing to walk for about half an hour in advance. It’s very much worth the effort, since the reward could be an impressive sunset.

Sunday was a regular gloomy day, but a bit special since the layer of clouds wasn’t very thick and got a few interesting shapes. This set up the scene for a spectacular sunset later, featuring colored Mammatus clouds. But I failed to photograph it properly, being in a constant hurry to get back before dark. Here is an image I took before the sunset:

Alone

The trip ended with me running around like a beheaded chicken, trying to find a way around the fence of the property mentioned above, until I found the small path.

Lessons learnt

Think, then shoot. I wasted an occasion with amazing light, because I tried to photograph the beautiful clouds gathered in a relatively small area with a ultra wide lens, making them small and insignificant.

During sunset, look behind. While keeping myself busy with the sunset, the trees behind me, bathed in strong red light in the beginning, progressively lost their intensity.

Take a headlight. If I had one with me, I would not be in a hurry all the time, fearing that I will not see my way back through the forest.

02
Mar
09

Another hike in Tyresta

By Paul 1 Comment
Categories: Around Stockholm
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Seeing that the weather forecast for this Saturday was looking good, I went together with a friend for another hike in Tyresta. The plan was to walk around lake Lycksjön, north-west from the bus stop.

This lake is outside the border of the Tyresta National Park and there are no hiking routes around it, which made the trip more interesting. We had to climb the cliffs on the west side of the lake to get to the other side, since we weren’t brave enough to walk on the ice.

But, going through the forest, especially if there are no tracks for humans to use, might reveal interesting things, like foot prints from a couple of foxes, a deer which also climbed the same cliffs and later on, on the east side of the lake, some moose marks, including relatively fresh pee and a couple of hair threads.
The red roof

26
Feb
09

Hiking in Tyresta

By Paul Leave a Comment
Categories: Around Stockholm
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Last Saturday was the most beautiful winter day I had in Sweden since I came here, almost 2 years ago. There was snow, which wasn’t very common last winter, and sun, which just isn’t very common.

I went on a hike with two work colleagues in Tyresta National Park.

We started in Tyresta By, from where we chose a path toward lake Bylsjön. We stopped near the lake for a cup of hot coffee from the thermos and a couple of sandwiches with caviar and boiled eggs. The trail is very easy to walk on, being made to also allow people with child carriages.

Coming home Winter sun

After spending about 3 hours in Tyresta, we drove to Sandemar in a reservation which has bird observation points. When we got there, we met a guy who probably came to watch birds, judging by the telephoto lens hanging from his neck. He told us that there is a swan trapped in the ice a couple of hundred meters from the shore.

Swan on ice

Swan on ice

We stayed there for about 30 min and saw the swan moving for a couple of meters, so apparently it wasn’t actually trapped. My Swedish colleague told me that these things happen quite often in the winter; the birds fall asleep and find themselves trapped in the forming ice.

We also met three skaters who came on ice all the way from Saltsjöbaden, a very brave thing to do, considering the distance of about 40km and the fact that the ice wasn’t very solid.

From Sandemar we took off to Dalarö, a small and cozy harbor town, where we had some duck company, interested in the leftovers from a tunnbrodsrulle, which is some sort of a Swedish kebab with sausage, that marked the end of the day.

Stirring

17
Feb
09

The Viking Run

By Paul 9 Comments
Categories: Around Stockholm and Events
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Vikingarännet (The Viking Run) is an annual skating race, covering 80km between Uppsala and Stockholm, on the ice of lake Mälaren. This year, it took place last Sunday and Sigtuna, a small town north of Stockholm referred by the term city, was a good observation point for the race.

The ice route

The frozen part of lake Mälaren nearby Sigtuna was also chosen by a couple of flying devices enthusiasts to land. The plane in the image is called SeaMax and it has been adapted with wheels to land on the ice.

The main issue with this race is that they don’t know if it’s going to be on, until a few weeks before, because short term predictions of the ice state must be followed. The event has its name from the historical transportation routes on the lake Mälaren, during the Viking times.

The propeller

12
Jan
09

Hike in Hellasgården

By Paul Leave a Comment
Categories: Around Stockholm
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The previous week has been cold, but at the same time sunny, with spectacular lights almost all day long, cast on the thin layer of snow. I was hoping the same pattern will persist throughout the weekend, but no luck. A thick layer of clouds brought in the gloomy days at the end of the week, but there was a strong need for a hiking trip in any case.

In one of my previous cycle trips to Nacka I tried to reach a lake called Källtorpssjön, which did a good job hiding itself from my sight. Therefore I headed toward it this Sunday, more specific to a place called Hellasgården.

The weather was quite warm, +3 degrees or so and I didn’t expect to find the lake still frozen and with a lot of ice-skaters on it. The ice didn’t look very thick, especially near the shore, but it was strong enough. Don’t worry, I tried it first with the tripod’s leg. ;)

Skaters in Hellasgården

I spent some time “hidden” between trees, trying a couple of panning shots on the ice-skaters and looking a bit strange, stalker like.

Family on ice

At 15:30 the sun already set, so I packed my stuff and headed back home. On my way back to the bus station, I saw some spectacular burning clouds between the branches of the trees. I rushed to the nearest gap in the forest, to get a better view, and quickly pulled out the tripod.

My tripod’s head has a clever mechanism to put the screw in the camera. They made the screw slot in such way that it may be fastened with a coin. Convenient. There is only one drawback here: having no coin with you. Of course, I could improvise, which is what I had done before, but the clouds weren’t waiting for my improvisation. I just put it in place and start shooting and in less than 5 minutes all the clouds you see in the photo below were gone.

Sunset colors above Hellasgården

02
Dec
08

The silent Kranglans

By Paul Leave a Comment
Categories: Around Stockholm
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The days got shorter. If you wake up late you risk having breakfast in the “evening”. Photography wise, this means that a tripod is desired for steady clear images. This Sunday I took mine and headed on a short cycle trip to Hästhagen.

I first made a short stop in the western part of Hästhagen. There is a rock from the top of which you get a nice panoramic view toward Nacka Forum.

View from Hästhagen

Then I moved along east and came to a place called Kranglans. Very quiet area. The sound of the shutter release from the camera seemed so loud, almost scaring the birds around.

The day was gloomy and gray, as in late November around Stockholm, and I was looking for something more colored as the subject for my images.

After trying with some green moss, I came upon two boats silently waiting besides a pair of floating docks. One of the docks was distinctively painted with red on the metal part, making a nice contrast against the background.

The dock with the red touch

Buddies

16
Nov
08

Cycling in Nacka

By Paul 3 Comments
Categories: Around Stockholm
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I was told recently that the mind functions better in the morning. I can definitely use some “better” in that area, so I decided to become a morning person, to see how it goes.

Therefore, today I woke up at 12, as part of this successful so far plan, and I saw a lot of clouds on the sky, instigating for photos. I’ve been wanting to check out some forest area south of Nacka for a while now, so today it seemed like a good opportunity to do it. After breakfast I checked the map and then I started spinning the wheels (cycling) to Nacka.

The plan was to get to Källtorpssjön, a small lake south of Hästhagen, as you may see on the map. That region is called Älta, as I found out later on the road.

It took me around one hour to get there. The tricky part is that no lake was in sight on neither side of the road. I turned right when I saw a sign with a guy swimming. This means water, right?

The path went on through the forest and it seemed like there is no end to it. Where is the freaking water? Suddenly, the small creek which you see in the image made itself heard and down the hill there was the lake. Oh, yeah, sweet victory! It wasn’t the lake I was looking for, but I was happy with this one as well.

Leakage

After one hour spent by the lake, taking pictures and watching the joggers, I had to head back home, since it was already after lunch time and in November in Stockholm this means darkness.

Nevertheless, I think it was pretty hard to get lost in those woods. In Sweden, there seem to be people jogging even in wilderness, moreover in some small forest in Älta, so in the worst case scenario I would’ve follow a poor guy trying to stay in shape.

View from the bridge

On the way home I passed by this building somewhere in Nacka and I noticed that most of the companies names on it were either blue or yellow, matching the dark blue sky of the evening. I stopped and snapped a few pics and this I like the most.

The building with blue brands

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