Sandhamn harbour

If I thought Vaxholm was all about boats, I hadn’t seen anything yet.  The two words I would use to describe Sandhamn are “serious boating.”  The Vaxholm area struck me as a more family fun boating area compared to the serious boaters here.   Bigger boats, and further out.   Lots of room for sailing, due east are the Baltic Sea, Estonia and Finland.

We took the 1 1/2 hour ferry ride from Vaxholm to Sandhman.   It was a crowded ferry on a Sunday morning, with the usual dog or two.  Another sunny sky with not a cloud to dilute the blue.

One of the beaches in Sandhman

There do not seem to be any cars on Sandhamn, only bicycles and ATVs.  The ‘streets’ are gravel lanes between the houses.  We walked a short distance to a beach, looking at the houses and enjoying the view, including an unending line of boats going in and out of the harbor.

Sandhman street

A cute little house in Sandhamn

Per Jan and Dawne’s suggestion, lunch was enjoyed at the Sandhamn Vardhus.  It’s a very popular spot and I had the fish soup.  Very good, but still not as good as my mother’s salmon soup.

Sandhamn Vardhus, a popular eating spot with very good fish soup

The fish soup

Prior to dinner at the Sandhamn Hotel and Yacht Club, where we are staying, we walked the 25 minutes or so to the other beach.  The water was clear and cool, and we saw another of the large cruise ships come by heading east, presumably having departed Stockholm.

Dinner was good.  The hotel, rooms and restaurant, is lovely in a very nautical way.  Tommy Hilfiger would think he’d died and gone to heaven.  The house wine, at 95 SEK per glass, was the best I have had since I got to Sweden.

The bar in the Sandhamn hotel, overlooking the docks