Biševo's Blue Grotto

Biševo is a small island in the Adriatic Sea archipelago, in Croatia. It is just off the larger island Vis. Under the sea front cliffs of this island there's Modra špilja or the Blue Grotto. A cave in the limestone rock, lit inside entirely blue by sunlight filtering through the underwater entrance. This cave has been called the world's most beautiful cave. Obviously a category with a lot of competition and different criteria could be applied. But, I don't think the claim is outrageous. It is remarkable.

And no, you don't have to dive to get in. There's apparently a natural entrance from the top somewhere, but the tourist entrance is a tiny hole just barely above water, enough for a small boats to enter if everyone ducks their head entirely inside the boat. The tiny hole was man-made in 1884. The cave itself is only 24 meters long, but quite high, as well as deep under the sea.

The experience is magical! This really is a blue light moment, very odd feeling when one is used to dark and moldy caves :-) Much recommended.

The cave was made popular by Baron Eugene Ransonnet in 1884, when he wrote an article about it in the a newspaper in Vienna. He believed it topped Grotta Azzura, previously believed to be world's most beautiful cave.

Biševo island otherwise would be an interesting excursion place. There's been a monastery on the island from 1050, though it was later abandoned due to the danger of pirates. It is one of the outermost small islands in the archipelago, and only got electricity for instance in 1970. Inhabitants in the island live off fishing, including spreading their expertise much further than in the archipelago. A migrant from Biševo, Martin Bogdanovic, is said to be a founder of US fishing industry, for instance.

How to get to the Blue Grotto? There ferries and catamarans running from Split to Vis several times a day, tickets are 8.60€ one way on Jadrolinija. The ferries to Vis arrive on the town of Vis; there's a bus leaving right in front of the ferry to the small fishing village of Komiža (tickets 3€). The ride takes 20 minutes. From Komiža's harbor there are multiple water taxi services to Biševo and the Blue Cave, prices vary but expect to pay 50-100€. The boat trip will take half an hour on a fast boat, and the boat will wait for you while you get on a tiny boat to make the official cave visit. I can't remember the price of the tickets for these, but I think was in the order of 10€. Beware that there are also more complete tours, either from Split or Vis that are inclusive everything, but they are potentially also more expensive.

More information about the Blue Grotto can be found on the Wikipedia page and the show caves page. I can also recommend the excellent book, The Azure Sun: The Blue Grotto on the Island of Biševo by Joško Božanic. I can't find an online source to buy this book, but it should be on sale everywhere on Biševo and Vis. This book and Božanic has been the prime source of information in this blog article - thanks!

More information about Biševo can also be found from its Wikipedia page.

I did not realize this when visiting , but there's another cave on the Biševo island, the Medvidina Špilja (Monk Cave) as well. Now I have to visit again... And if you haven't been to the island of Vis, there's also many interesting bunkers (fancy a swim in an underground submarine base?) and caves (an article about the Queen's cave is pending... but there's also Tito's cave) there as well!

Entrance to the cave:

Inside:

The underwater entrance to the cave, from the outside:

Komiža and the taxi to the grotto:

Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2021-2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. 

First mökki-swim in 2024... driving on a Jaguar

Too busy, and now without a car I have not been able to visit the summer cottage this year at all. Sigh. But now my car repair shop nicely loaned me a four-liter green '99 Jaguar for the weekend. Very nice! And a fun car to drive. And it was such a bliss to drop into the lake after visiting the sauna. The water was warmer than it probably has ever been on June 1st...

(But don't ask why the repair shop can afford such nice loaner cars... maybe the old Volvo repair business is picking up?)

More issues with Volvo: the previous breakdown was due to fuel pump relay. Now it is again the relay but on closer inspection the relay burns out due to the pump inside fuel tank drawing a lot of current. This sounds bad, even to me. All fixable (with some uncertainty factor) but the cost is again increased. I’m now definitely questioning my choices.

More about the Jaguar:

Volvo at the garage:

Cottage swim night and day:

Cottage food, halloumi burgers:

Cottage views:

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! More car stories in the Planetskier blog series at Blogspot. Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.  I never photograph pools, beaches or saunas unless the facility is closed or empty.

This might be it

News: Volvo left me on the road .. and 10 days to the fixing deadline and no plan or parts. This might be it?

Note the readily available “broken, towing ordered” paper that I have carried for years.

More car stories in the Planetskier blog series at Blogspot. The photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko.

Ski and beach vacation in Järvenpää

There wasn't much snow or sunshine, but hey, there was some. Glad I went!

Definitely more than one can hope in my local environment in June. So this was at the ice skating hall of Järvenpää, an hour's drive north of Helsinki. But since I have no working car :-( I took the train.

Ice skating halls typically clean the ice few times a day, which results in excess ice slush and snow, that gets dumped outside. How nice! I'm here to recycle that snow :-)

But the snow plot was indeed small, and I had to pile all the little piles together to make one big enough to ski even a bit. Still, while I did manage maybe 35 cm of vertical and 3 meters of distance, my only turns on the narrow strip of snow were after the snow had ended, on the wet asphalt. Whatever works, I guess. A turn is a turn.

(Is this from the even-a-drop-makes-glass-full department?)

The ice skating hall apparently is only used during weekends, or at least does so in the summer. I don't think they had cleaned the ice today (Saturday), so that means that any snow that was left was from yesterday (Friday).

The walk to the beach was nice, 2.5 km from the ice skating hall. The park between the city and the beach is super nice, interesting sculptures, boat harbors, a cafe next to the beach, etc. Much recommended. The beach itself was also super good, long shallow sandy bottom, a few trees, changing cabins, the works. Also recommended!

The ice skating hall official web page is here, and the beach web page is here. Tony Hagerlund's excellent blog has also written about the beach here here.

Skiing:

Beach:

Park:

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.  I never photograph pools, beaches or saunas unless the facility is closed or empty.

Through the grey stone

In Finnish we have this expression, "läpi harmaan kiven". It translates literally as 'through the grey stone'. It represents sisu, another Finnish concept: going through no matter what. Even through rock. Here Harri-Pekka Pietikäinen demonstrates the concept.

Harri and I had a nice evening excursion in Korkberget. He's been there many times, and frequently leads groups to caves, including to Korkberget. I wasn't sure if I would be able to show him anything he hadn't seen before, him being an experienced guide and writer. But I've been in Korkberget probably more times than anyone else, pushing a month or so spent on site on. my map-creation exploration :-) 

So armed with details from that experience, I still managed to show Harri a couple more of precious places that people often like. Such as the squeeze above. The squeeze has actually seen a lot of use, the Finnish Caving Association excursion also enjoyed it a lot. It is just the right size, hard, but not impossible for most people. And since it is in a place where trying to go through is safe as you are accessible from both sides, it is not just fun but also safe and feels safe when you can be surrounded by friends who can help. Or bring in rock drills, if need be. (Just kidding, we would never destroy cave rock! If anyone gets stuck, a few days of dieting in the cave will surely free them up :-) )

We also visited the Fagerkulla bunker close by. This is one of the bunkers built by the Soviet Union when they were occupying the Porkkala peninsula after World War II. A two-storey bunker, a scary place. The entrance is sketchy. In the summer the entrance cannot be seen, so you might suddenly fall five meters to be impaled by rebar if you don't know what you're doing. And now in the spring, it was too wet, so the entrance that was partially covered in mud started crumbling and sliding on us. Well, we made it in and out safely.

A remarkable place as well, even if it represents a human-made horror. 

Harri is the author of a well-known Finnish caving book, Luolatarinoita - suomalaisen luolan filosofia ja muotokuva, about the philosophy of the Finnish cave. More recently he has written about fears in Tunne pelkosi, vapaudu elämään. 

About the places we visited: here's an article about the creation of the map of the Korkberget cave: link. A more in-depth article about the bunker can be found here: link.

Korkberget cave:

The Korkberget cave's boat parking harbor :-)

The team:

Bunker pictures below. In the first picture stalagmites are growing from the broken floor:

NOTE: Both of these places are EXTREMELY dangerous. Never visit them, and if you do, please please be aware of the dangers and know what you are doing.

Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko, maps are snapshots on site. All rights reserved. 

Rantasauna

Rantasauna is a legendary party place in Otaniemi, in the student village of the Helsinki University of Technology (now called Aalto University).

There's a sauna... another sauna... a kitchen and a big meeting place. And some outdoor terrace, including a massive hot barrel tub.

I have not swam here often, but a few times. Now with Otadata, my old student club focusing on computer science we had another visit. And I went for the swim. Not sure I've ever swam in the sea in Finland when it was this warm, and it was only June 3rd!

The official page for the Rantasauna is here.

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.  I never photograph pools, beaches or saunas unless the facility is closed or empty.

Excursion to Myyrmäki

A Friday evening excursion to Myyrmäki, a suburb in Vantaa! I went for a swim in Myyrmäki's community swimming hall, but it was of course also an opportunity to do more sightseeing in the nice weather. And ride more trains... given that my car is broken. 

I also checked out Allen Grilli, a "motor restaurant" that is famous for being the first sponsor of Mika Häkkinen. Sadly, they went out of business recently. Perhaps I should have visited them before that... hmm...

The swimming hall was quite nice. There's two saunas, one hot -- almost too hot without throwing any water, but of course the crazy men throw plenty of water without regard for others in the sauna. The milder sauna is good though. Then there's a steam sauna as well. 

On the pool side there's a wide 25 meter main pool, two children's pool, a relaxing pool with some water jets, a jumping pool with also a climbing wall (nice!).

Overall, pretty good experience.

According to Wikipedia, the hall was built in 1974. Definitely does not feel like that, or maybe the reception spaces and dressing rooms feel a bit like that, but the actual pool areas feel definitely more modern. Perhaps they were renovated?

The swimming hall on the right:

More Myyrmäki graffiti:

Playground next to the swimming hall:

Allun Grilli:

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.  I never photograph pools, beaches or saunas unless the facility is closed or empty.