{"id":22281,"date":"2016-06-22T19:33:21","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T18:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/?p=22281"},"modified":"2021-08-03T16:04:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-03T15:04:28","slug":"birthday-boy-on-the-archipelago-nagu-nauvo-finland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/birthday-boy-on-the-archipelago-nagu-nauvo-finland\/","title":{"rendered":"Birthday Boy on the Archipelago, Nagu (Nauvo), Finland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zagan the motorhome is on an island, one of 25,000 islands, islets and skerries that make up the Turku Archipelago. He’s resting his wheels after a morning of bridges and a free ferry ride to get to a car park in Nagu (N60.18810, E21.90201<\/a>) or Nauvo depending on whether you speak Finnish or Swedish \u00a0– everywhere is signposted for both.<\/p>\n

\"Nagu<\/p>\n

Today it’s Jay’s birthday! I won’t say how\u00a0old he is, but as he opened his birthday card from my parents (they’re so organised we’re given cards before we leave) and eyed up the bottle of real ale I’d kept hidden from him since we set off, he mumbled something about 11 years until his private pensions become available, then chuckled to himself. It’s really strange to think that it would be another twelve years after that before any state pension would start paying out (we’re assuming there won’t be one) and we could retire from work.<\/p>\n

\"Yes

Yes it is a Lidl tiramisu with a tealight – sometimes you have to improvise!<\/p><\/div>\n

Birthday boy had a choice of where he wanted to spend his day, and he opted for the Turku Archipelago, so a little after 10am we set off. First stop was to check out a potential service point in Turku. We’d done some internet digging and found a website that lists free motorhome service points in Finland. Known as Ajokaivots,<\/em> these little heated booths are scattered across the country and with the help of Google Translate we got to the page with the GPS co-ordinates for all the stations<\/a>, and a link to a map, and that’s pretty much all we need. A trip to the one\u00a0in Turku (N60.44415,E22.22378<\/a>) enabled us to empty the grey tank and some\u00a0liquid from the loo which had to go into the grey drain too (as the only thing that looked like a black water point was clogged up so we avoided it). We took on board water and washed the area down so it was cleaner than when we arrived and we were good to go.<\/p>\n

\"Motorhome

Tucked away on an industrial estate, we would never have found this.<\/p><\/div>\n

Crossing over the bridge onto the first of the islands we were a bit discouraged, it looked like the mainland. Our first planned stop in Pargas was aborted after the car park by the marina was also overlooking a huge factory. We drove\u00a0another 17 kilometres to Lillmalo where satnav directed us to carry on for 60 metres and take the ferry – she’s never uttered that phrase before. We arrived just as a ferry left, which gave me time to nip out and have a quick look around, while an enterprising lady loaded up a trolley with donuts, donned a backpack full of coffee and worked her way up the forming queue as a mobile Starbucks.<\/p>\n

\"Ferries<\/p>\n

The crossing only takes 10 minutes and two boats run it in the daytime, so it wasn’t long before we were starting up our engines ready to board. We were initially concerned that Zagan might not fit on one of the free ferries (memories of a free ferry in Poland<\/a>\u00a0that never was), so but when a huge two-trailer lorry pulled up next to us in the priority lane our minds were put at rest. As we trundled onto the boat, we were amazed at how many cars they managed to get on behind us, and as we’ve never been on a free ferry before, we\u00a0got a bit carried away shooting a video of the experience.<\/p>\n