Feb 27 2010
A 30,000-island smorgasbord
[JS Marcus, The Wall Street Journal, February 12th, 2010]:
Sandhamn, like so many towns in the archipelago, has a literary connection—this one to the frequent summer visitor Stieg Larsson, the late author of the “Millennium” crime trilogy, which begins with “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” Mr. Larsson gave Mikael Blomkvist, one of the trilogy’s main characters, a summer house in the village. A colleague, Stockholm-based journalist Kurdo Baksi, recalls that Mr. Larsson, who suffered from insomnia, would stay up all night in Sandhamn, working on all three books at once.
The writer most closely associated with the archipelago, the pioneer of modern drama August Strindberg, infuriated Kymmendö islanders after he “poorly disguised” them in a novel, says Erik Höök, senior curator at Stockholm’s Strindberg Museum. Another Strindberg haunt, the resort of Dalarö, is reachable by commuter train from Stockholm and is a convenient place to get a taste of the archipelago. An excellent 62-room year-round hotel—The Smådalarö Gård, situated around a restored 200-year-old manor house—offers winter weekend packages, with quayside sauna facilities, allowing for rapid cool-downs in the Baltic, as well as an outdoor Jacuzzi. The January-March packages are 2,395 kronor for two people (including some meals).