Monthly Archives: June 2016

 

Sandhamn might be considered a place with a very mixed reputation. Almost every resource I consulted ahead of my trip said this busy island was an absolute must-visit when sailing in the archipelago. But but when I asked Swedes about the place, (and Rodger, the old English salt I had met in Stockholm), the verdict was also unanimously negative: too busy, too expensive, too noisy they said. Rodger in particular was scathing, describing the harbor as a place ‘where rich Swedes come to play every summer, pretending they are regular folk by slumming it on their 50 foot yachts’.
Just the place for us then.

 

We left Dalaro around 10am under grey skies heading ENE. As the weather brightened a following breeze of about 8kts gifted us the easiest of comfy downwind sails under jib alone. It’s about 17nm from Dalaro to Sandhamn and the key is to leave Namro to your starboard then duck below Runmaro, negotiate one tight pass and then enjoy an easy short sail of perhaps 3nm to the Sandhamn harbor, located on the north east corner of the island.

 

The place has long been  a favorite destination of well-heeled Stockholmers , with the playwright August Strindberg a frequent visitor in the 19th century. Now the town is dominated by the main hotel, a patrician -looking place which dominates the main gasthamn (guest harbor). As we pulled in our lines were taken by a very attractive young Swedish teenager in a smart resort uniform. This very much set the tone for our two days here. Gorgeous young Swedish people, living a healthy outdoor life. For $40/night you can enjoy a clean, friendly and spacious marina (provided the midsummer crowd have not yet arrived), plus the place has the requisite showers, WC, sauna and laundry that all cruisers need.

 

The island is well worth a walk around and it’ll take about an hour. After turning right at the marina you reach the edge of the main hamlet in about two minutes, and after passing what passes for the town’s outskirts – pretty little country houses with picket fences and compact gardens bursting with summer blooms, you quickly find yourself in a big pine forest fringed by sandy beaches which, though pretty too look at, are exposed to the unrelenting Baltic breeze. Sandhamn is a pleasant island and not a bad place to relax and unwind, but if you’re looking for solitude, look elsewhere. The local ferries from the capital seemed to unload a human tide every couple of hours, and we were told that within a few days (i.e. by midsummer night on June 21st) the resort would become unbearable. There were signs of this everywhere, with a mobile radio station setting up for the annual solstice bacchanals in which all Swedes delight, and several large and very expensive sailboats pulling in just as we left Tuesday morning.

In sum, this is a great place if you like guest harbors, and is probably the most ‘important’ island in the archipelago. But if your thing is swinging on the hook in solitude, look elsewhere.

One of the mottos that has consistently served me well in life is to surrender to serendipity. Richard and I did just that on Friday 17th June and ended up richly rewarded with not just a memorable meal but four great new Swedish friends. It was my 54th birthday and since Dalaro is rather a one-horse town we only had two restaurants to choose from, but given the fact that I fully expected to be stumbling drunk by night’s end we decided to try Bistro Solsidan, located right next to the dockmaster’s office in the marina.

The place is typically Swedish, making the most of limited space with its largely white interior accented with nautical and botanical prints. It benefits from two huge bay windows to showcase the unhurried Swedish sunset and on the night we visited the atmosphere was buzzing, helped by a bibulous goodbye party for local teacher with all her female colleagues.

As for the grub, what a pleasant surprise it was. The blackboard featured a menu of locally sourced fish and meat including sea bream, pike-perch, salmon, Swedish lamb and a reindeer hamburger that was essentially rare inside and all the better for it. I struggled to decipher the proprietor’s inventive Swenglish but my ears perked up when he described the kyckling vitello tonnato. For the uninitiated, Vitello tonnato (and I’m quoting Wikipedia here) is a Piedmontese dish of cold, sliced veal covered with a creamy, mayonnaise-like sauce that has been flavored with tuna. It is served chilled or at room temperature, generally in the summertime. In this instance the veal had been substituted for chicken and the whole thing was adorned with a cress and arugula garnish.

The wine list also made for good reading, a small but imaginatively chosen selection from which we opted for a Provence rosé priced at about $40 – a bargain by Swedish standards. Including coffee and dessert the bill came to around $112 which I considered a good deal considering some of the mediocre meals I have had for the same price in Los Angeles.

However, best part of the meal was befriending Olle and Annika, a fifty-something Swedish couple at the table next door. We struck up a conversation with them after Olle, translated ‘pike-perch’ from the proprietor’s tortured food descriptions. Turns out he and Annika were fellow sailors and within minutes we were fast friends, getting tips about secret spots in the archipelago while he quizzed me as to the provenance of my boat.

As they restaurant emptied Ollie insisted we share a post dinner drink with them, then another, and then their friends arrived, a Swedish businessman named Torbjorn and his wife Ann from Laguna Beach in California. More drinks followed along with tales of the Golden State from Ann and myself and to nobody’s surprise we all decamped to my boat in the driving rain for even more drinks. We all became fast friends very quickly.

We were rained in to Dalaro for several days which allowed us to enjoy another nice dinner with our new friends – this time at Torbjorn and Ann’s house and what a treat it was. Their large and comfortable house, decorated in a pale palate and dotted with large candles in hurricane jars, just oozed Swedish calm  and we enjoyed a typical locoal meal of steamed salmon and monkfish, boiled potatoes, carrots and asparagus and raspberry and mixed leaf salad. Since there is no systembolaget in Dalaro we didn’t bring wine, instead contributing a rhubarb compote from the excellent local deli. We were joined by another sailor named Jonas, a Hallberg-Rassy owner, who had seen my Allied Seabreeze in the marina and also peppered me with a million questions. Jonas  was a fearsome-looking fellow with a shaved head and big Viking beard but was actually quite mild mannered, telling us that last summer he had done volunteer work among the seaborne migrants in Turkey and Greece.

If you do find yourself in Dalaro, do not miss the Bistro Solsidan, or the Dalaro Bageri (bakery) or the deli about six doors down from the bakery whose name I neglected to note. However steer clear of the only pizza place in town, which although benefiting from friendly service, serves possibly the worst pizza I can remember having in recent memory….

When we finally pushed off for Sandhamn on Sunday morning we cast a long and fond backward glance at Dalaro. It was happenstance that we came here, but I for one will definitely be back.

 

The day dawned cold and grey. But we had to get to Dalaro because England were playing Wales in Euro 2016 and Richard really HAD to watch it. Plus I needed a reliable internet connection and power supply for work, so I donned my foulies and waterproof and we cast off around 8.30am for a cold and wet upwind motor to the tip of Orno – about 90 minutes of discomfort – and then a quick thirty-minute  crossing to Dalaro, a charming but slightly larger town (this all being relative in the archipelago) just across the water. Looking very much like an old fishing town in Maine, Dalaro is rocky and steep with houses dotted across the island running down to several working docks and wharves. We turned past the southern tip, again negotiating a very tricky low-water channel  with lighthouse perched right in the middle of the fairway by re-reading both the pilot AND Navionics before proceeding, finally  turning to starboard to reach the Dalaro Marina, a tucked-away sweet spot with perhaps 40 guest places. Our lines taken without fuss with a four-person team of Swedish teens, two of whom we later learned were Afghani refugees, part of a government program to give work experience to immigrants. Again this gasthamn (marina) provided us with all we needed – internet, laundry, showers, toilets and even a sauna, which was a very welcome antidote to the damp weather. With similar showers and clouds forecast for the next two to three days, it was time to hunker down and catch up on the blog….

https://youtu.be/OB0MU4aRNVU

Wednesday, June 15th: The day dawned bright and clear for our jaunt down to Orno, and after casting off and motoring out into the main channel we had hoped to raise the sails. But with the wind on the nose and a long journey ahead we elected to motor until lunch time, when we took a slight detour to the tiny hideaway of Napoleonsviking, located about 5nm from the harbor at Saltsjobaden.

This little bay was recommended to us both by Rodger back in Stockholm and Bengt, the endlessly helpful harbor master at Saltsjobaden, and though we didn’t plan to spend the night, I was eager to practice my mooring skills, which in this part of the world involve dropping a stern anchor and motoring slowly towards the granite rocks, which rise so steeply off the sea floor you can bring the bow close enough to step right off without worrying about scraping your gel coat. As a novice both with this technique AND the boat I had a few nervous moments with Richard at the bow yelling back directions, but at the third attempt we got it, Richard stepped off without incident and we secured the boat via a couple of bow ropes  around two nearby fir trees. I tightened up the anchor line, which led aft off a nifty webbing reel, and we were snugly secured and able to explore the island, a delightful little place, although we were careful to keep  a weather  eye out for ticks, which can carry TBE, (tick borne encephalopathy), a nasty little germ which can lead to permanent brain damage. Noted, doctor.

After the taking the requisite pictures and uploading them in a braggy Facebook post we cast off, motored out of this gorgeous little bay, not without regret, and hoisted sails for an easy beam reach almost to the northern tip of Orno about 6.5nm SSW. As the wind backed (or was that veered?) round to our quarter and died away we raised the mizzen and slopped along at perhaps 2.5 knots until impatience got the best of us and we doused the sails, fired up the iron genny and motored the last hour down the east side of Orno through a couple of very tight passes for about another 6nm, before turning up a creek to the dinky and totally sheltered Kyrkviken guest harbor, which consisted of just  two other boats, an outhouse and a ferry dock. The place gets its name from the large church just up the hill which dominates the landscape, and apparently it also boasts a highly-regarded restaurant, but we only discovered that after our departure.

The only fly in the ointment upon arriving was that I had not read the instructions in the pilot guide quite thoroughly enough, (i.e. not at all) and had failed to get my stern anchor ready before heading in. Rather than turn around in tight quarters,  we secured the bow with two lines at the dock and I then launched the dinghy  to row out the kedge, drop it overboard and secure it from the cockpit winch.

Another idyllic spot (getting boring, I know), but a great place to hunker down, totally sheltered,where we spent a quiet evening drinking Dark and Stormies (Havana Club rum with ginger ale and a squeeze of lime) with Richard again excelling in the confined galley, putting together a tasty grilled chorizo appetizer followed by marinated grilled chicken with green onion and jasmine rice. Really a great end to a lovely sailing day.

Mon: June 13th: Andy had kindly marked a few of his favorite destinations on the charts and first on the list was Saltsjobaden, an easy three hour journey away from Vasahamnen mostly motoring but with a nice sail at the end. Richard and I cast off around mid-morning, bidding a fond farewell to the Stockholm waterfront and taking a sharp left around Grona Lund and thence down the main ferry channel for just under 4nm before turning right down Skurusundet,  a narrowing channel with steep rocky walls that provided some eye-popping views  of a range of Swedish summer houses, some  traditional clapboard in  red ‘falu’ paint with white trim, but others austere, modern masterpieces of stone, steel and glass. No matter what the architectural style, they all shared one common feature: stairs running down to the water,  with a dock at the bottom, a small boat and and course, the requisite sauna. We passed one gorgeously peaceful and sophisticated tableau after another, with me at least contemplating another life as a bourgeois Stockholmer dividing my time between my city pied-a-terre and my country house an easy 60-minute boat ride away in the islands.

Sigh…

After about 2nm the channel opens up into Lannerstasundet as you swing east for another 1.6nm and then reach the most beautiful but nerve-wracking section of Baggenstaket, long considered the ‘backdoor’ into Stockholm,  a channel barely 100m wide, flanked by  graceful country houses on either bank, and thankfully  marked by red and green channel marks just 20m apart in places  with a scant 9ft of water under our keel. It’s less than 1nm long but sailors best be very cautious here and not get  distracted by the gorgeous scenery and inviting country houses.

Soon enough the channel opens up into Baggensfjarden, a much larger section of open water, perhaps 1.5nm from shore to shore in places, where we could finally raise the main and jib and tack back and forth for thirty exhilarating minutes until we fetched the Saltsjobaden marina, the headquarters of the Royal Swedish Yacht Club, where we tied up for two nights for about $35/night, enjoying facilities including hot showers, bathrooms, laundry and a very chi-chi bar and restaurant area where a sour lingonberry cocktail would set you back $15.

This looked very much like a place where Stockholm’s beautiful people come to see and be seen on a Friday night. Lots of expensive powerboats, and ageing but still beautiful locals possessed of prominent cheekbones and a stylish dress sense. Suffice it to say, Richard’s ageing music producer chic worked better at the bar than on my boat, where topsiders and a waterproof shell answer much better.

According to the guidebook, Saltsjobaden was envisaged as a chic getaway for Stockholm’s smart set. It was the brainchild of a wealthy industrialist who modelled it on the French resort of Trouville (neighbor to Deauville) in Normandy. The bay is dominated by the fading but still glorious Grand Hotel, looking down imperiously on the bay and its boaters. It looks like the perfect setting for a Strindberg or Bergman drama, and the town behind the hotel is a quiet, two street affair, with a railway line direct to Slussen in Stockholm, now defunct in summer, but still used in winter for those who prefer to avoid negotiating the icy streets to the capital. All things considered, this is a lovely spot and a great gateway for those planning to cruise to the archipelago.

https://youtu.be/tpnijMneoVw

Friday: June 10th: Making the brief walk back to the dock in the morning I had lots to think about. Andy and Mia were there to meet me and say goodbye and let me just say that it was a very emotional moment for me. A novel mix of fear and exhilaration, anxiety and relief washed over me and I found it hard to keep my composure. Fortunately they had the sensitivity to make the goodbyes quick and I hopped back aboard Arcturus, took a look at my new home and, as middle aged men are wont to do, laid down in my bunk to contemplate the challenges and adventures that lay ahead.

The next three days I spent opening up all the boat’s numerous cupboards, drawers and other hidey-holes and inventorying all the equipment Andy and Mia had left me. And it was a very extensive list! I also did my best to fit into the eco-culture of this wonderful town by renting a bicycle to explore and provision. And cruising sailors being a helpful and gregarious bunch, I was able to make friends with Roger and Christian, a retired British couple whose summer home is a classic Dutch-designed sailboat whose name completely escapes me. Rog and Chris  not only marked about a dozen little ‘naturhamn’ (natural harbors) on the charts in the archipelago where I could ‘swing on the hook’ for free, but Roger also strongly advised me to visit Sarbis, a gourmet food store just ten minutes away on the bike where I could stock up on excellent cheeses, charcuterie and seafood. Not ‘arf, as my father used to say….

Then came Sunday, and the arrival of my old mucker Richard Tildesley, a British expatriate in Spain whose idea of ideal cruising togs was not layers, waterproofs and topsiders but rather  a houndstooth jacket, shiny black winklepickers and a trilby hat.

My poor old decks…

Monday 6th: The older I get the worse jetlag hits me. East to west is no problem, but west to east is a bitch. So it was no surprise that I awoke at 4am after barely three hours sleep, having walked around old Vasteras for an hour or two after my visit to the boatyard. By 5am I was blowing on cold fingers in the early morning chill while trying to peel back the cover on Arcturus. I then disassembled her custom aluminum frame, located the keys in their hiding place, took a deep breath, and pulled back the companionway board. Both inside and out she looked a little less glamorous than her pictures (no change from LA then). She was also smaller in the flesh (quite unlike LA). At 10am Andy and Mia pulled up and after quick introductions we got to work. Shortly after 1pm Arcturus was in the water. Her engine started first time (thank you Beta Marine) and we motored across to the neighboring marina where her masts where stored for two days of prep before heading east towards Enkoping and thence to Stockholm.

 

It won’t surprise  anyone who has listened to the 59 north sailing podcast that Andy is a whirlwind of activity onboard. The list of tasks, big and small that he crossed off his to-do list over the next 48 hours to make the boat ready for setting sail left my head spinning.

By Monday afternoon the main mast was rigged and set up. It sounds simple but in reality it involved plenty of very exact instructions from Andy and the learning of a whole new vocabulary for me. Starboard lowers, port uppers. Starboard intermediates. Cotter pins, clevis pins. Mast tangs. My head was spinning in the setup phase alone,  which was way before I watched Andy and Mia work seamlessly in tandem to get the beastly mast aloft and stepped into place on the cabin top. Mia handcranked the dockside crane while Andy secured the mast to the crane hook, maneuvered it into place, secured the fittings and tightened all the standing rigging. And Tuesday brought more of the same, albeit on a smaller scale with the mizzen aft of the tiller.

But while the boat was taking shape gloriously, my own mood was darkening.  With Mia and Andy leaving for the night the activity ceased and I was left alone with my thoughts. Surveying the huge pile of stuff on the cabin sole – clothes, foul weather gear, electrical equipment,  soft shackles, a portable shower, headlamps, how-to-books, charts, sunscreen, lip balm, a marlin spike, a cutting board, you name it, I was left with an overwhelming sense of despair. I had embarked on a huge adventure I was woefully ill-equipped to face. I had spent a large sum of money. I was away from my family for ten weeks in a foreign country. How in God’s name could I make this work?

or a first glimpse of my future (or folly).

 

After an uneventful flight from Malaga in southern Spain where I had spent a delightful four days in the company of an old school friend, Richard T (to be mentioned later on this site), I landed at Arlanda, Stockholm’s main airport, heavily laden with two bags (combined weight 80lbs) and my electronics-laden backpack.

First task was to secure a Comviq sim card for my unlocked iPhone so I could call internationally cheaply, and most importantly, use the phone as a hotspot for my laptop. Cellular service is ridiculously good in Sweden and a 10 GB package, which should last at least a month, plus very cheap international calling, cost me about $40 at the 7-11 store inside the main terminal. Result! All I had to do was insert the sim card and activate it with the code written on the receipt, according to the nice Swedish lady at the cash registe. Turns out it wasn’t quite that simple. But more of that later.

It was absolute Sisyphean task getting my bags off the Hertz rental bus and into their reception, but my exhaustion was tempered somewhat by the news that I was getting a free upgrade from the manual subcompact I had paid for (about 30 euros per day), to a spacious silver Volvo station wagon. This is a terrific car, fast and roomy and powerful, although also possessed of the quirks so particular to this marque and probably Swedish cars in general. My first clue came about five minutes after I got on the freeway, when the radio would periodically give way to a gentle alarm that lasted for just a second or so. Looking at the odometer, I saw an electronic speed limit sign appear and disappear. I soon realized that the car came equipped with a sensor that linked to the speed limit signs along the highway and adjusted its warnings accordingly. Oh, those clever Swedes!

Forty minutes later I was in Vasteras, a mid-sized town towards the eastern end of Lake Malaren. Mia had warned me ahead of time about Sweden being very much a do-it-yourself culture and I discovered this first-hand arriving at my hotel after 6pm, when all the staff go home. There were detailed instructions in my confirmation email about how to insert a code to open the front door, and where to find the key safe, and what combination it took, in order to access my room. Foolishly I had swapped out the SIM card, although I didn’t have the little pointy doohickey that you need to prise it out, but I managed it with the help of an Iranian couple in a nearby corner store, who lend me a needle. Next problem: for some reason I couldn’t activate the phone. The opening screen kept asking me to access a wifi network and I went round in circles trying the exit, without luck. So I decided to head to hotel and do it there. But now I no longer had the needle so I couldn’t put the old sim card back in so I couldn’t read the email from the hotel on how to get in. I found a local corner shop full of young, beautiful tech-savvy Swedes but after asking 2-3 people they couldn’t help me either. Deep breath. Then I made a breakthrough. The coffee shop must have toothpicks. With that I could prise out my new, non functional SIM card, insert the old one, get instructions on how to get to my hotel room and figure it all out from the comfort of my hotel room. So that’s what I did. Not only that, I discovered that the default opening screen for Comviq SIM cards is to choose a wifi network to register the phone. After that it was simple.

By now it was 8.30pm and still light, as usual in Sweden in June. So I took another deep breath, jumped in the car and navigated five minutes to the deserted Gullberg’s marina on the shore of Lake Malaren where Arcturus was stored on the hard. Five minutes later, walking round a corner, I saw her. She was unmistakeable. I pried open the back of her cover and took a picture. Walked around, had a look at the hull and thru hulls. I then took several very deep, long breaths. I finally was with my boat. This was really happening….

The Stockholms Skärgård, or Stockholm archipelago, was described in one sailing magazine as ‘a delicious chocolate box of 30,000 alluring granite islands, each with its own character, history and wildlife.’

The islands, which stretch east from the nation’s capital, Stockhom, forms the central section of a larger archipelago of over 100,000 islands – the world’s largest. Summer temperatures can hit the mid-to-high 20s Celsius and the weather is temperate. In summer there’s a 25 per cent chance of winds reaching Force 5 but the water stays invitingly flat and you’re never far from a lee. Tides are all but non-existent due to the Baltic’s narrow entrance. What flow there is runs outward and is brackish, due to meltwater run-off further north. At greater depths, salt water flows in from the North Sea.

The most popular section of this fabulous cruising ground contains 30,000 islands, islets, wherries and rocks – from Grisslehamn in the north to Landsort in the south – each with its own character. Rugged nature blends with wooded islands, rocky cliffs and sandy beaches. You can explore uninhabited islets as well as islands with new communities and ancient villages, where large houses and small cottages stand side by side.

One of Sweden’s literary heroes, August Strindberg, himself a regular visitor, described the archipelago thus” ‘These islands, holms, skerries lying so softly on the water it was impossible to say whether they were part of the earth or part of the heavens.’

Amen to that.

This is not a sailing story. It has nothing to do with Arcturus. But the night in question was an interesting  insight into the nature of serendipity so I’m going to publish and be damned.

On Saturday June 4th, the night before I flew to Sweden to see Arcturus in the flesh for the first time, I went out for dinner in Estepona with my old friend Richard, whom I was visiting in Southern Spain. I’d been to the town a couple of times before and it was nothing to write home about. This particular evening a few minutes after leaving the house I noticed I didn’t have my phone. But I figured, what the heck, we’re just going out for tapas and a few glasses of vino…it will do me good to disconnect for a few hours.

We began the evening at Bar Simon, right at the edge of the revitalized town center for a quick glass of rosado and the bar’s signature dish, which was recently named ‘tapa of the year’ in Andalusia.  It was a fillet of bluefin tuna with caramelized red onion topped with a pimento/strawberry confit. Sublime.  And not a flavor combination you’d think would work. A very promising start to the evening.

Soon after we strolled up the hill to the town center where to our amazement there was an event taking place which looked like some kind of Easter festival. Turns out that’s exactly what it was, but the town had just decided to revive  it in June for the first time in 25 years. Lucky us.

The Cofradía del Cautivo reenacts the procession of the captive Jesus to Calvary. And the whole town turns out to either join in the procession or enjoy it from the sidelines.  The ladies of Estapona leading the procession were decked out in their best dresses with shiny court shoes and black mantilla veils on their heads,    carrying gold or silver-plated sticks, the significance of which remained a mystery. Behind them came local dignitaries, including the mayor and city councilors toting large embroidered civic banners extolling their loyalty either to Estepona or the region as a whole. Then came the Guardia Civil dressed up in their best military spit and polish. And finally a brass band from what looked like either the local high school or the church, either way, all the  players looked like teens. But the centerpiece was a life-size statue of Jesus with a man I presumed to be Pontius Pilate, but given my ignorance of Catholic ceremony I could be wrong. Jesus wore a crown of thorns and a pained expression. The two statues were mounted on the bed supported by large railway-sleeper type beams. The whole edifice was perhaps 15-20 feet long, and doubtless weighed several thousand pounds, and it was all supported by 20 or more young men on either side, dressed in gray suits and black shoes, swaying more side to side than forward as they reverentially bore their considerable burden from one side of town to the other, accompanied by the blaring brass of the band and steadily beating drums.  A quite compelling and authentic spectacle of civic and religious pride and of course, I didn’t have my camera to record it.

It was also lovely to see that the whole of the town came out to watch: large families of ten or more, women with strollers and babies, while the children played nearby, not so much interested in the procession but rather with each other. I saw plenty of seven year old girls flirting with nine year old boys in an innocent foreshadowing of later life.

But the evening was completed for me, (because I love to eat), by the new crop of stylish and innovative restaurants that have appeared like magic since my last visit. Richard told me that since the recent election of a forward-thinking ‘non-aligned’ mayor (this is important in Spain, apparently) the place is being transformed into a culinary and cultural destination. On every corner it seemed there was a buzzy and bustling new restaurant, staffed by young, hip Spaniards, using local ingredients and farm-to-table practices, none of which would have been out of place in the more cosmopolitan districts of Madrid or Valencia. In addition to exciting and innovative takes on Spanish food,  the restaurants were showcasing boutique wines by up-and-coming small batch producers. One tiny little boite we stopped at boasted 75 wines by the glass, none of which I’d ever seen in the States  including a fabulous Hondarriba white from the Basque country which perfectly paired with their lamb and potato croquet with  mint sauce. Other highlights from our bar-hopping including a divine and unctuous oxtail dish and a morcilla (blood sausage) purse.

Estepona’s old town is quickly morphing into the sort of place you could bring the family and not be disappointed, either in terms of the variety or the price. Take your time and linger for a few hours quaffing, nibbling and people watching. And if you’re really fortunate, you might also be able to enjoy a soundtrack of the local brass band tooting melodically from somewhere just around the corner.

I was able to find a little footage of the event, which focuses, unfortunately exclusively on the statue of Christ to the exclusion of all else. But you get the idea….