More than 20,000 islands...

and smaller rocks litter the appropriately named Archipelago Sea, somehow navigated safely through the dark of night on our approach to Turku, the oldest city in Finland.

Turku Castle is a stones throw from our berth, with its thick white-washed walls and complex history beginning in 1280, and was the objective of the morning's outing (click to enlarge):

Turku Cathedral is next on our tour, a magnificent brick-built cathedral with lofty interior walls and traces of Medieval paintwork murals:

The final stop was to the open air museum, where buildings which survived the devastating fire in the early 1800s that destroyed most of early Turku remain in their original locations, and today are all open to visitors where guides tell of the activities which took place in the community:

After our brief visit, we set a different route through the countless granitic and glacially-scrubbed islands, the product of isostatic rebound due to the latest deglaciation of the northern Baltic (at rates between 4 to 8 mm/year):

On our way en route to Stockholm a cormorant displays for a potential mate, but could be mistaken for waving farewell as we move quickly by: