Rising early, relatively, Liz and I grabbed breakfast at the hotel whilst plotting out our course for the day. On the agenda is the town of Porvoo and the castle in Hämeenlinna. So, plan of attack in-hand we jumped in the Prius and hit the road. We rolled into Porvoo around lunchtime, grabbed a tourist guide and headed to the closest cafe. Over coffee and pastries we decided to take the walking tour of the town. Porvoo is an old town, mention of it in documents begins in the early 14th century, with sufficient history. Taking it's name from a nearby [View Full Entry]

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Well I made it from Rovaniemi to Sotkamo where I spent one night with my Thomas and Suvi, the couple I met in Svalbard. Thomas and I walked their dogs, then got back and went for a sauna (almost every Finnish home has one). Then we had a BBQ and relaxed for the rest of the night. I hung out at their place on Friday, and then on Friday night Thomas and I hopped in his car and headed to his family cottage near Loviisa on the south coast on Finland. It was the first time on the trip that I [View Full Entry]

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You Never Really Know A Country Until You Get Out Of Town We’ve been really sad over the last few weeks that we have been relegated to only major cities. Since our time in France we have jumped from one big city to another. While this is a great way to get an overview of country’s culture, it gives you no feeling for what a country is actually like. Most cities, despite having large/important sights, temper their country’s culture with a dose of cosmopolitan-ness (not a word, but you get the point). This means that most people in cities are [View Full Entry]

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I thought it'd be a great experience to take the ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki. Instead of being just a means of transportation, this ferry service has become a mini-vacation of sorts for many Europeans with many options for the traveller including bars, buffet restaurants and of course, shopping. Through this, I''ve managed to encounter a group of Europeans that I would not normally have encountered on the streets of the cities I've been visiting. The vacationers (mostly senior citizens or middle aged folk) stock up on duty-free booze like it was going out of style tomorrow. The duty free [View Full Entry]

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Afew weeks ago, I realized that I did not have any plans for the weekend. I, at that point, decided to go to a random nearby town for the day. I wasn’t sure which one I wanted to go to but I thought of Porvoo. When I asked my flatmate if she was doing anything Saturday, to ask if she wanted to join me, she said that she and her friends were going to Porvoo! Talk about coincidences! So I joined them for the day. This adventure was a bit different from the rest, in that I was surrounded by [View Full Entry]

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Puu in Porvoo Europe » Finland » Porvoo By jessie_elicia March 25th 2007 Jessie Smith Hello everyone, here's a quick update on week 12 in Finland. This week was mosty spent working at school with the exception of a one day excursion with my class to the historical town Porvoo. This town is located where the sea and river meet and was orig [View Full Entry]

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