Did you know this about Åland?

Take the opportunity to visit Åland on the occasion of the historic champagne auction on Friday 8 June. You can schedule a long weekend on a theme of champagne. How about starting the day with a champagne breakfast and then going out in a lovely wooden boat to visit the place where the champagne wreck was found?

What five items can Åland offer in terms of world-class sights? Things that an international audience can only experience here? We ask a few experts in Åland’s past. The many wrecks generally, and especially the champagne wreck, get a mention. It’s possibly more surprising that the cultural landscape and a certain little farm should end up on the list.

This will take you straight into the Viking world. When you visit the Viking market in Kvarnbo on 26-28 July, you meet bearded Vikings, serfs in rags and women with jewelry and beautiful costumes.

Now you can have your journey by air all the way to Mariehamn in one booking. Travellers from countries all over the world can change flights in Helsinki or Stockholm and land in the island state an hour later. Getting your luggage out is really quick and after a ten-minute taxi ride you can be at a hotel in the town centre.

How about flying to the conference? For me it almost felt like getting out of a private plane. Travelling on the daily flights to Mariehamn from Helsinki, Turku and Stockholm is not particularly expensive. It’s not just conference guests and business travellers who fly to Mariehamn airport; young people and tourists do as well.

Rent, buy or why not own a house in the form of shares in a housing company. If your dream is to have a holiday home in Åland, there are currently several options open to you.

There were 717 entries to the photo competition on Min Ö (My Island Community). Carl-Johan Listherby's picture of the old wooden boat lashed to a stone was the jury's favourite. Carl-Johan has sailed around the whole of Åland with the boat, so the picture has wonderful memories attached to it. The picture also earns him an iPad2.

In the Middle Ages, the Crusades passed by Åland. At that time, the island state was right in the middle of the Scandinavian artery, a sailing channel that these days is called the Valdemar Fairway. The motorway of the times was mentioned in writing in Latin in the 1200s. The fairway runs from Arholma to Åland and the Finnish archipelago. A number of traces of medieval times have been preserved in Åland.