Aland Islands

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.

Thank you!

I wish to thank Wendy Graham-Madeira at TravelOnly by Wendy Graham-Madeira, for making arrangements, for my daughter, and son, and me, for a two weeks vacation at the Riu Palace Resort, in Aruba. Not only that, but making reservations, for a night at the Sandman Hotel in Toronto, including parking for two weeks, and also parking for my kids, at the Park and Fly.The Riu Palace was great, with delicious variety of foods, and Ala Carte at Japanese, Italian, Steak...
By Dave Patterson