Sunday 26 August 2018

Windmills at Lerkaka, Öland

Road Trip 2018, Part 11
Back in the 19th century there were about 2000 windmills on Öland. At Lerkaka* on the east side of the island, you can still see a typical row of old wooden mills  alongside the road.
DSC03913-001
DSC03918-001
DSC03925
 DSC03926 DSC03910-001
Interestingly, across the road you can also see the modern kind of windmills:
DSC03909-001
DSC03915
There is also an old rune stone here. The text is supposed to read something like this:
“Olof and Gammal and Saxe raised this stone after Unn, their father. Geirvi had the monument made for her husband. Olof took revenge for Unn the Rich at [miomu]; Unn owned half the village here.”
*Lerkaka, by the way – the name of the village – means “slab of clay”! (Perhaps easier to understand on wet day?)
DSC03921-001

DSC03922-001
There is also an old workshop here, where the women in the village used to get together to process flax into fibres, and the fibres into yarn etc. July being a busy tourist season, there was a guide from the local history society in place to explain the basics to visitors.
DSC03923-001
They also had some cards and souvenirs for sale; and I could not resist buying two table place mats:
DSC04642
One showing the windmills in this very spot; and the other a lighthouse.
DSC04643
There is one lighthouse at each end of Öland (north and south, and the distance between them is  around 150 km). (The one on my place mat is from the south.) We didn’t go to neither the north nor the south end of the island on this trip, though, but kept to the middle. From the bridge [A] over to the east coast first – Lerkaka is at [B] on the map below. Then up a bit and crossing back over to Borgholm on the west coast: and from there back down along the west side to Färjestaden. Not very long driving distances; but plenty more to see yet, before the end of the day!
Öland3



6 comments:

  1. I have never seen this style of windmills, not even in photos. I really, really like these a lot... they are old, rustic and works of art. what's not to love? the new windmills may work better but not as pretty...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love these old windmills. The newer ones don't have any charm at all. It is the old ones that are so wonderful, and like country works of art. The place mats are a perfect memory of this trip. Is that grass on the roof? The rune stone is awesome, and even tells you it's purpose!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love the run stone, wonder how old it actually is? And I always thought windmills were in holland for some reason.

    ReplyDelete
  4. 2,000 windmills! That must have been really something to see! Wow.

    ReplyDelete
  5. People weren't daft in the old days, were they; they knew how to tap into the natural resources around them, so, in a windy place, they built windmills to take advantage of this readily available natural source.
    You are right, hard to imagine a slab of clay on such a sunny day! Lovely shot of the butterfly...

    ReplyDelete

Communication is what makes blogging fun :)
... but all spam or suspected spam will be deleted.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...