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Photographer’s Note

The Åland Islands (Swedish: Åland, Finnish: Ahvenanmaa) form an archipelago in the Baltic Sea. It is situated at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia and forms an autonomous, demilitarised, monolingually Swedish-speaking administrative province, region and historical province of Finland. It is the smallest province of Finland, comprising 0.50% of Finland's population and 0.49% of land area. Although it belongs to Finland, the culture is close to the Swedish one. It has self-government and an own flag. The capital of Aland is Mariehamn.

The islands consist of the main island, Fasta Åland (where 90% of the population resides) and an archipelago to the east that consists of over 6,500 skerries and islands. The main island is separated from the coast of Sweden by forty kilometres (twenty-five miles) of open water to the west. In the east, the Åland archipelago is virtually contiguous with the Finnish Archipelago Sea.

(Wikipedia)
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Geta is a municipality of Åland. The municipality has a population of 461 and covers an area of 87.21 km˛ of which 2.80 km˛ is water. Geta is almost an island itself, connected to the main island by just a narrow isthmus. The beautiful nature and the various possibilities to enjoy it are perhaps the best known things in Geta. The highest point of Geta rises 107 metres above sea level and there are great views around Geta, towards the forest covered rock chain and over the fjord like bays towards the sea. Soltuna restaurant & café and lookout tower is situated at the top. From here you may walk along Grottstigen (The Cave trail, 5 km) via the Geta cave and down to the beautiful bay Djupviken, or bring the children along for Trollstigen (The Troll trail, 1 km). The hilltop also has a name Kasberget, which refers to its use as singal fire hill at ancient times.

More information on Åland Official Tourist Gateway and here is more about Geta.
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This photo is scanned from a B&W negative and was shot in summer 1957. We were with my brother in that summer as hired hands in two farms separated by a couple of kilometres in Hammarland village of Åland. My dad decided, that it would be a good way to learn Swedish language, the second official language in Finland. We were of course
studying Swedish at school, but obviously with not a good success. :-) That summer sure helped a lot, because the farmers' families did not know a word of Finnish. In the weekends we had free time and we used to bike with my brother all around Åland. One weekend we went to Geta and biked up the road to the highest point. There indeed were amazing views. We saw in addition to the further lying sea also two small beautiful lakes in the distance. We left the bikes and walked to the first lake, name Svartträsk (Black lake), less than 2 km from the hill top. This picture is from the lake.

PP: After scan the contrast was rather poor. I have tried to improve the contrast and clarity.

saxo042, Longroute, fanni, Clementi, paololg, papagolf21, gracious, stego, ktanska has marked this note useful

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