Karlskrona

Cycling tour to the end of the world – Karlskrona to Herrgårdsviken

You start in Karlskrona, this Swedish seafaring town that looks like an admiral drew it with a ruler and gunpowder. Then you head out – along narrow streets that lure you ever closer to the water.

Västernäs : a short detour that sounds like an IKEA dresser, but looks like the postcard idyll of your unattainable childhood sweetheart. Wind. Water. Two seagulls with a death wish. And you're right in the middle of it, panting, cursing, alive.

Bredavik : wider than the name suggests, but what else? A few boats, a rock, a café that's probably only open when you least need it. You keep going – not out of desire, but because stopping suddenly seems like surrender.

Tjurkö : sounds like a bullfight, but it offers only granite and the quiet conviction that the world ends here. An island like an old face – wrinkled, quiet, but with stories no one wants to hear anymore.

And then Herrgårdsviken . The name sounds like an aristocratic bathing retreat, but everything ends here – the road, cell phone reception, hope. Only the sea remains. And you. And the good feeling of having accomplished something, and the certainty: It was worth it. Somehow.

Then the ferry.

She comes slowly, as if she's in no hurry to see people like you. Back across the water that's been watching you the whole time. You stand there with salt on your face, mosquitoes in your helmet, and the faint suspicion that these islands were laughing at you. But hey, they carried you too.