By the third week in August, Swedish school terms have restarted and the thousands who make the Stockholm archipelago their summer home have returned to the city. Ferries have switched to winter timetables and people are outnumbered by fallow deer.
I try to get my bearings using the chart hanging in my cousin’s summerhouse, but the white-tailed eagle view of 30,000 islands, islets and skerries is baffling. A boat is essential, and my son makes the necessary perspective shift before I do. “It’s like the Lake District in reverse,” he says. “The land is water and the lakes are islands.” I see what he means. There is something about the ice-worn geology and the vegetation dominated by pines, alder and birch that feels familiar, but the scale and intricate wateriness of the place is as confusing as it is beguiling.
