Finland calling

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Holiday Boy Route 1 Well its been a while since our last update about 4000KM to be precise!!!!

We travelled all the way up to the North Cape the northern most point in Euorpe (that isnt actually the northen most point theres a piece of headland around the corner that sticks out a bit further but thats a 10KM walk to get there!!!!). The Norweigens have tourism sussed though its cost £35 in road tolls to get to the North Cape although I cant complain the road is amazing and even includes a 7KM tunnel under a fjord, that said you then have to pay £20 per person to get into the visitors centre which is a bit of a rip off.

After that we headed into Finland as soon as you cross the border there is a complete change in landscape did you know that Finland is 69%!c(MISSING)overed by trees and very flat. We started off in the Lapland area populated by the Sammi people (natives) and lots of reindeers. Our first stop was Inari which has the third biggest lake in Finland and a museum known as the SIIADI centre a very impressive place telling you all about Sammi culture and Lapland nature.

We then headed to Rovanemi the centre of Lapland where the artic circle cuts through Finland and it is also home of the real Santa Clause at Santa Clause village. It completely typifies the commercialisation of christmas and the photos cost and absolute fortune. No I didnt buy the photo.

We are now heading down the west coast of Finland having made stops along the way in Oulu (which I think may be the home of Nokia), Vasa and now in Rauma.

In Oulu we went swimming in the local pool (probably the best swimming pool in the world!!!!) Olyimpic size (50m) with dive centre (4.75m deep at the deep end) 3 little pools, 1 spa pool and 3 Saunas (all running at different temperatures) all for £3 I was in heaven :o).

The scandanvian way of life is quite impressive everyone is very friendly there is hardly any crime. Everybody in the towns/cities rides a bike in the summer and no one bothers to lock them up when they leave them lying around town. They are also fitness mad with people cycling, running, roller bladeing all in the heat of the midday sun. Finland is cheaper than Norway by some way so we are getting more for our euro now.

We are in the middle of a heatwave at present with temperatures between 25-30 degrees.

The van is performing well with only one major repair job so far. We were probably in the northen most scrapyard in Europe (Hammervest Norway) and they had the part and with the help off some locals including a guy from the Ukraine we managed to fix the problem.

We are heading south now to the Aland islands today 6000 small islands lying in the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia midway between Sweden and Finland although owned by Finland they have there own autonomy so technically they are another country.

Anyway thats about it for now so enjoy the new photos also you can view a map of our journey by clicking the link at the tope of this page

.http://www.travelblog.org/gmaps/map_3Yb.html

Keep in touch

Bye for now

Holiday Boy :o)

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Comments

[Alex]

Cool, I'm so jealous
Hi Boys! All sounds great, apart from the breakdown of van-which bit was it in the end? So you saw the midnight sun? Boling here too, lovely cycling to work. Keep the news and photos coming. Not sure whether to try to pop into Norway when I head north in few weeks. Have fun. Alex

[Rachel]

Wow - I'm so jealous!! Your photos look really spectacular, keep enjoying yourself!