The Åland Islands or Åland (pronounced "Oh-lahnd") are a group of small islands officially belonging to Finland in the Baltic Sea, consisting a surrounding archipelago. It is autonomous, demilitarised and is the only monolingually Swedish-speaking region in Finland. Åland's original name was in the Proto-Norse language - Ahvaland which means "Land of Water". In Swedish, this first developed into Áland and eventually into Åland, literally "river land"—even though rivers are not a prominent feature of Åland's geography. The Finnish and Estonian names of the island, Ahvenanmaa and Ahvenamaa ("perch land"), are seen to preserve another form of the old name.
The trip that Max planned for us kept our relative travel inexperience in mind. It gave us sufficient variety in terms of locales and points of interest to make the trip navigable yet interesting and at the same time, comfortable and relatively stress-free. As a long experienced traveller himself, he chose our hotel locations well so as to have many points of interest in each of our destinations well accessible. We were able to see and experience many points of interest in each city we found ourselves in without having to depend on taxi or transit services. We walked a great deal as was our choice. Intercity travel had some challenges but this was entirely out of Max’s control. We were able to get to where we needed to be without significant disruption. Overall, Max’s experience as a seasoned traveller himself served us in good stead. We had a well thought out itinerary and had a wonderful experience.
