Jyväskylä Finland 9 August 2014

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Jyväskylä Finland 9 August 2014

It is Saturday today and we want to get to Helsinki by Sunday night so after leaving the lovely quiet spot in the forest where we parked for the night, we drove in a general western direction to Jyväskylä. I say general direction because we had to thread our way between the 100s of lakes, so there was a bit of twisting and turning of direction.

We arrived in Jyväskylä at about 11.00am and drove straight to the Alvar Aalto's Museum. He is THE father of architecture in Finland. His designs can be seen all over the world, but particularly in Finland, Italy and the USA. He officially started his career in 1921 and died at the age of 78 years in 1976. He not only design buildings, but glassware and everything that went into and onto buildings - chairs, tables, door knobs etc. He also made sure his buildings blended or was integrated into the environment as well as being conscious of natural vegetation and landscape design. He was a world leader in architecture. The museum was really interesting.

We then headed for the town centre with its 132,000 people. The town is also known for its role in the Finnish section of the World Rally Championships.

As we walked down the mall of the town there was a dance and musical performance being put on by some locals. They were all in traditional dress, including 3 very cute little children.

We had a coffee in the mall and then said goodbye to Jyväskylä and headed for Tampere.



In the photos, I have included one of a car park with car engine-block warmers that are used in winter. We have seen them all over the Scandinavian countries because it is so cold (-30C) in winter and the engine needs warming when the car is parked. We have also seen boot/shoe cleaners at apartment doors so that people can clean off the snow from their shoes before entering buildings. These are some of the different things that are required in such harsh winters, that we just don't need in Australia.

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