Sure enough the rain stopped in the evening and Sunday dawned bright and sunny. We had planned a bike ride to Bomersund, the site of a fort destroyed by the English & French fleets during the Crimean war. It was the first time this year that the Bromptons had been unwrapped from their storage rack on the aft rail and some tyre pumping and spraying with WD40 was required to restore their functionality, but we were soon heading up the steep gravel track away from the harbour.  

 An airing for the bikes

It is signposted as a 10k ride along one of the 4 major roads that dissect the islands. However for most of the way there is an excellent bike track alongside the road, which in any case seemed to be carrying hardly any traffic. It was quite hilly though and that made the going a little difficult for those who were out of practice. The ruins of the fort at Bomersund were a pleasant surprise as they were excellently presented and there was more there than we were expecting. There were information boards everywhere.  We had read about the battle when the fort was destroyed. Amazingly a Rev. Hughes had sailed there in his yacht Pet and watched the battle from his anchorage. He seemed to have been a bit of a British navy groupie as apparently he followed them up the coast and watched other battles, then wrote about them in his diary. A very intrepid Victorian!

Along the way we came to this memorial to the French forces who had died at Bomersund. Very few of them died in battle, 556 died in a cholera epidemic

 The information boards were very informative but mostly relaying what had been planned as a lot never got finished before the fort was destroyed

and this is typically what is left now of the other buildings

  The fort encircled a town as well as providing a garrison for soldiers

But not so much left now; the hexagonal blocks must have taken quite a bit of hewing

The British fleet was in this Sound to the South of the fort

The first ever Victoria Cross was awarded to a sailor who threw a shell off the deck of his ship at the Battle of Bomersund

There is a museum, but it was closed at the weekends in June, which was a bit disappointing.  However there is also a café and we were able to get a traditional Aland lunch of smoked local salmon and potato salad. The journey back was into a head wind, which made it seem further and the hills steeper, but we made it back in one piece, if a little saddle sore and were soon in the cockpit enjoying a cup of tea in the sunshine.

Views to the south and north from the bridge leading to the (closed) museum

A rest and some lunch

  We weren’t sure if this pole had been decorated early or had lasted very well from last year

  The mile posts  marked distances along the old Aland mail road, which was the route from Stockholm to Turku through the islands. Again local people were expected to take part in a relay delivering important mail between administrative centres. For some reason a Swedish mile was over 10.5k in those days – perhaps they wanted places to appear closer together!

  The path back to the harbour – nearly home for tea!