Granholmen

In the fringe of the Archipelago of Stockholm, some two and a half hours from the city, is an islet called Granholmen ("the Pine Isle"), where my family had a small summer house for almost forty years. I came there for the first time when I was three months old, has spent summers, winter holidays and uncountable weekends there. It is a place of calm and tranquility that will always hold a very special place in my heart.

The "village" on Granholmen. The ringed house used to be our cottage.

Granholmen main pier - this is where the ferry land. The small, pinkish house in the middle is the waiting house; on its right, you see the pier.

There aren't any roads on Granholmen, only larger and smaller paths; this is the "High Street," the path leading to the main pier, that runs through a stunningly beautiful nature that no scanned picture can really do justice.


These pictures are from one of the most beautiful places on Granholmen: Munkhamna ("Monk's Harbour," approximately), the nature reserve.

This used to be our cottage. 36 m²; three rooms and a tiny kitchen. Not large, certainly not flashy - but as you say, my home is my castle...

Paeninsularum, Sirmio, insularumque
ocelle, quascumque in licentibus stagnis
marique vasto fert uterque Neptunus,
quam te libenter quamque laetus inviso,
vix mi ipse credens Thyniam atque Bithynos
liquisse campos et videre te in tuto.
O quid solutis est beatius curis,
cum mens onus reponit ac peregrino
labore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum
desideratoque acqiescimus lecto?
Hoc est, quod unum est pro laboribus tantis.
Salve, o venusta Sirmio, atque ero gaude,
gaudete vosque, o Lydiae lacus undae:
ridete quicquid est domi cachinnorum.

Apple of islands, Sirmio, and bright peninsulas, set
in our soft-flowing lakes or in the folds of ocean,
with what delight delivered, safe & sound,
from Thynia
from Bithnyia
you flash incredibly upon the darling eye.
What happier thought
than to dissolve
the mind of cares
the limbs from sojourning,
and to accept the down of one's own bed
under one's own roof -
held so long at heart...
and that one moment paying for all the rest.
So, Sirmio, with a woman's loveliness, gladly
echoing Garda's rippling lake-laughter,
and, laughing there, Catullus' house
catching the brilliant echoes!
(Catullus, Carmina XXXI - transl. by Peter Wigham)