As this blog gets ready to go into hibernation mode until the next panorama project, I thought it would be a good idea to put up this post reviewing all the panoramas I took during my August 2008 trip around Sweden. This time, they're listed not in chronological order but subjectively, from most favorite to least, according to how much I enjoyed the moment and how well I thought the photograph came out in the end.

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I'm curious whether you agree with my sorting. BTW, if you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can now also access these panoramas on the go: Just download the free PangeaVR panorama viewer from the iTunes app store, and you'll find all these panoramas listed under "Sweden.se - Panoramic Sweden".

Thanks for reading!

The second half of August is already very late in the season, and these cabins were deserted when I arrived around dinner time on a Tuesday (Aug 19). Just on the other side of that little dune ridge is the Baltic, I promise, but it was flat and not being nearly as interesting as this double row of terraced cabins, which lets Swedes shelter from rain showers on a day out to the beach.

OMG, Gotland is fantastic! The weather didn't cooperate in the end, but never mind: This island must have among the highest per capita cultural patrimony in Europe — every hamlet, no matter how small, has a church that elsewhere would be the highlight of a trip.

No, Kalmar Castle did not miraculously teleport to Gotland island, where I am currently — it's raining buckets here in Visby, so instead I prepared a panorama I took a few days ago, when I was in Kalmar, on my way to Öland.

I'm not religious, but I wanted to make a pilgrimage of sorts to the remains of Bridget of Sweden (AKA St. Birgitta), the 14th century saint who started her own order and whose example, I suspect, strongly influenced Sweden's sense of self in the centuries that followed, up to the present day.

"Wallander, we have a situation."

"A situation?" He hated euphemisms. They never brought good news.

Sometimes, a single experience can make the entire trip worthwhile all by itself. It happened to me just a few days ago in the small village of Vika outside Falun, whose 14th-century church I was told had some magnificent wall paintings that I wanted to photograph.

This is the view of Fjällbacka during yesterday's (Sunday's) sunset, from the the top of a diving platform on a small island that forms one edge of the harbor. It had been cloudy most of the day, but out over the North Sea there was clear sky, so it was only a matter of setting up the camera and waiting for the sun to dip under the cloud cover before it set. For a five-minute period, the village was ablaze in red.