Approaching the Finnish line...

Europe » Finland » Lapland » Rovaniemi
March 19th 2010

Published: March 30th 2010

Edit Blog Post

Mr Leeds United

Journey to Finland

On the way south from Abisko

The next morning we were up early and in another (almost - slightly different to walking from Italy into Vatican City) new experience, we walked across the bridge which was also the border into Finland. Here I raised my bat to the adoring crowd as I celebrated another milestone - 50 countries! What we didn't realise was that when we crossed over the bridge, the time also went forward an hour! So we headed to the bus station and started our scramble to get to Rovaniemi (a place which Hannah STILL can't pronounce!) in time to see what we wanted to see and in time to catch the night train down to Helsinki.

In the end, we made it to Rovaniemi in good time and even got to see quite a bit of Kemi (a smallish Finnish town along the way), including the Snow Castle - think the Finnish version of the Ice Hotel. Once in Rovaniemi, we taxied out to Santa's Village and had a good couple of hours there as Hannah experienced the purpose of her trip and got to sit on Santa's knee. After that, we explored around and sent some letters and postcards back home, which

Journey to Finland #2

On the way south from Abisko

should arrive at Christmas time with the Lapland postmark. Are you one of the lucky ones who will receive one? Only if you are good..... Remember Santa is watching.....

After this, we went back to the town and had some dinner before boarding the night train and for once I envied Hannah's midgetness as she was able to curl up over two seats while I spent a rather sleepless night sitting up. We arrived in Helsinki with the rising sun, and made our way to the hostel where we ditched our stuff and headed out to explore. It may have been the overcast conditions, but Helsinki didn't grab me the way Stockholm did, but it was still nice enough as we walked around the snow and ice covered parks and explored other buildings of interest. After a night on a train, we were both looking forward to an early night, which we did after some good hostel pizza for dinner.

The following day was the last of our trip and it was lucky the flight back was late at night as we had lots to explore over the day. We started the day with a relaxing sauna and

Border

One foot in Sweden, one foot in Finland

after just missing the ferry, we headed to the National Museum, which was very interesting, especially for me with my interest in medieval weaponry, before coming back and catching the ferry out to Suomenlinna, which was built up as a sea fort to thwart the invading Russians back in the day when Finland was part of Sweden. So we spent the afternoon exploring the fortress and tunnels there before heading back to the hostel and onwards to the airport and back to London. The added bonus of a trip like this is that we had acclimatised a little bit to the temperatures so London seemed positively tropical in comparison! So it was back to work, and after the 6 month or so break between holidays before this, it is only a little over a week before I am on the road again as we take an Easter road trip out to Cardiff to visit Brendan and Renee before heading further up and around the coast.

Additional photos below

Photos: 18, Displayed: 18