West coast fashion

I loved the houses in Klädesholmen, with the gardens full of lilacs and the boats hanging on the exterior walls. There were lamps carefully arranged in many of the windows, and Ulla, the guide, said tourists always ask about them. "It's not a custom," she said. "It's a fashion." Then she added that she suspected everyone does it so that no one can see inside the windows at night when the lamps are lit.

Most of the houses had white mailboxes like the one on the right, but others were wood with painted ocean scenes, some of them beautifully weathered.