Photos

Furusund is a small island in Stockholm archipelago, which you pass when you travel with a ferry to Stockholm from Finland. The small village and the strait, which the ferries pass have the same name. The island has 126 all year inhabitants today.

There are two nice pictures uploaded by Kari Tanskanen (ktanska) from Furusund, one of them is here). They were taken at the end of April, when no leaves had yet appeared into the trees. I was pondering weather to upload mine, but finally decided to upload one, which shows the village in the middle of summer and also from another POV.

Furusund is located in a place where the channel narrows into a strait, which is visible miles from north and south. It not exactly known how long the island has been populated, but the strait name is known from the 13th century.

The first builder was Jaeppe Diekn, a Danish man, who was the place-holder of Bo Jonsson in Turku castle. He saw the beautiful island from the deck of the ship and bought it in 1380's, moved there with his family and founded a manor.

The original inn and sea pub was built in the 17th century. In 1719 the Russians burnt down the pub, but it was rebuilt after a few years. In the 18th century king Gustav III needed money for a war against Russia and he founded a royal distillery on the island and from aquavit he got the money. In 1883 the filthy rich court jeweller Christian Hammer bought the island and founded a big modern bath resort. The whole island was changed to a park with well maintained roads and paths. He let to build villas, baths and entertainment buildings. Furusund changed into a summer paradise in Jugend style, which was visited by society, royals and many writers and artists. The island is perhaps best known as the summer place of Astrid Lindgren, August Strindberg, Carl Larsson and many other writers and artists. The island was connected to the mainland by a bridge in 1953.
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One of the things to see in the island is the optic telegraph station, built in 1837. Short messages could be sent by pivoting shutters. Six marks per minute was the speed and the code book contained 1024 different combinations. The operation of the optical telegraph finished in 1871, when telephone replaced the old technique. The station was restored and it is the only remaining optical telegraph in Sweden.

Another thing to see is the windmill, which has become the symbol and landmark of Furusund. It is a so called post mill, where the whole body of the mill is rotating. The windmill was restored in 1960. You can see it on top of the hill in the photo and even better in the above mentioned photo of Kari.

The big red house in the middle, Furusunds Värdshus (inn) was built in 1811 and was originally a customs house. Its function as a customs house finished in 1940's. It is nowadays a conference and hotel building.

In WS you can see the villas just outside on the left from this photo.

The map mark is placed on the Värdshus.

Geocode: 59.659038,18.916118