Blogs from Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland, Europe - page 5

We pulled into a cloudy Helsinki, Finland at approximately 8am and were fully disembarked by 9:30am. At the ferry terminal, we caught a taxi to take us to our nearby hotel, Glo Hotel Kluvvi, just off Helsinki's main pedestrian thoroughfare, the Esplanadi. I had figured that at this point in the trip, we would all be tired of sharing the same room in such close proximity. So for our final destination, we all got our own separate rooms! It was still too early in the morning to check in so we dropped our bags at the hotel and set out to explore. We walked over to the nearby Helsinki Cathedral, one of the most visited sites in Helsinki. This Lutheran church is well known for it's tall green dome which is very distinctive in Helsinki's skyline. ... read more

Monday 6 July: Well the big news in this part of the world is that the Greek citizens have resoundingly voted “No”.. That means they do not accept the austerity measures that are required for them to get their credit extended. So that means the banks are basically out of euros and, unless a new deal is negotiated very soon, the country is for all intents and purposes bankrupt. If that happens then they may well have no choice but to leave the Eurozone. All very interesting and we’ll keep an eye on what happens. Another sunny day but the wind was out in force and it was a cold one! Temperature dropped to about 10 in the wind, but out of the wind it was much more pleasant. We caught the ferry to Suomenlinna which ... read more

An update to let you know about our great day on Thursday and our shambolic day courtesy of FinnAir on Friday. IF I have internet access in Akaslompolo I’ll post some photos of Thursday and do updates as per normal. But if you don’t see a blog for a few days then don’t panic! I’ll update everything next weekend when we get back to Helsinki. Thursday 25 June: A little bit of a sleep-in and then Zachary went and played with the dogs for a while. He really enjoyed throwing them the ball and was able to get them to listen to him. He definitely is a “dog-person”. We then headed for the Givskud Zoo and Safari Park. We parked in the first parking lot and from there walked a loop to see elephants, buffalo, and ... read more

No niin... Taas mennään. Katselin tuossa vanhoja blogeja ja näköjään trendinä on usein jättää viimeinen postaus joko täysin vajaaksi tai sitten pois kokonaan. Ja osa reissuista kokonaan loistaa poissaolollaan. Oltiin helmikuussa 2015 8pv New Yorkissa. Se oli sinällään jännä reissu, että ensimmäistä kertaa harjoiteltiin kahden lapsen kanssa reissaamista. Nyt on sitten näin lapsiperheen näkökulmasta isompi vaihde silmässä ja lähdetään pe-iltana ensin Istanbuliin 4 päiväksi ja sitten 10pv Iraniin. Viisumi Iraniin oli yllättävän hankala. Kolme kertaa kävin suurlähetystössä viemässä lappuja. Helpommalla olisi päässyt, jos olisi hankkinut turistitoimistosta kutsun maahan. Mutta menihän se sit näinkin. Itse kohdetta olin lobannut S:lle jo muutaman vuoden ja nyt heti kun sain myöntävähkön vastauksen, varasin suoraan lennot. Yhtenä myyntiargumenttia oli, että majoitutaan hienoissa ja vanhoi... read more

I was originally going to title this blog as “The best laid plans of mice and men – Part 3” as the first two blogs of with that title, and , dealt with plans gone airy. However, those blogs dealt with making connections with family at our final destination who were arriving on different flights from different places. Furthermore, I cannot state that my plans for this trip were “best laid” as my itinerary involved multiple transfers from Colorado Springs to Dallas Fort Worth to Charlotte to London Heathrow with bus transfer to London Gatwick and finally to Dubrovnik. The return flights also involved five transfers. The more transfers the more probability of something going wrong; e.g., missed connections, missing luggage, etc. Such is the downside of using frequent flyer miles. The more apropos title would ... read more