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Friday 3 July:
A quiet day today. We played outside a bit, although the bugs are really out in force. Watched a couple of movies and generally did stuff all. We headed into town in the afternoon and updated emails, blogs etc before going to one of the two restaurants in town. TripAdvisor suggested the food at the pub was better but that the Tower Restaurant was better for children, so that’s the one we chose. I went for a typical Lappish dish of sautéed reindeer with mash, lingonberries, and pickles. Heather chose the Arctic char and pike. Overall the food was okay. The reindeer had no resemblance to venison, it was more like beef. Heather’s char was good but her potatoes and pike not so much. Zachary’s fried chicken was excellent, but he didn’t eat much of it. They had a little play area with plenty of toys and he was more interested in that. There were some other kids there so that was good. On the way back the mozzies and other nasties were really out in great numbers and it was a major battle to keep them away, even with the insect repellent sprayed over
us. They do seem to particularly like my blood!
Tomorrow we head back to
Helsinki. I’ll go into the office and drop of keys and DVDs while Heather does the final pack and at 1045ish we should get picked up and taken to Kittila for our flight.
Saturday 4 July: Some concern which was not quite panic this morning when 11am came and went with no sign of our shuttle. I tried ringing the office to ask them to follow it up but the phone line was busy and stayed busy. The number for the shuttle still didn’t work. Just as I was about to call another company it turned up at 11:10.
No further dramas as we got to Kittila airport. They only have one flight a day this time of year but the airport itself is very nice. They have 4 gates which suggests during peak season they may get a bit busier. The flight back to
Helsinki was a bit busier so we had a larger plane this time – an Embraer 190 which seats 100. There was one spare seat which happened to be
next to Heather.
Overall we enjoyed Lapland and the peace and quiet of it. We didn’t see as much wildlife as we thought we might and it was quieter than we expected. We thought there might be more options in terms of activities / tours but it really is a winter destination. In hindsight hiring a car would have been a good plan as we could have gone into Sweden for a day and also to the nearest proper city, Rovaniemi, which is about 200km from Äkäslompolo. But, we can say we have been to Lapland (and Norway) and seen at least a small bit of the Arctic Circle.
Back in Helsinki, which was a balmy 27 degrees, we made our way back to the hostel. We noticed when we got to the train station that a decent sized cut has appeared in one of our backpacks. It has either been sliced with a knife or been put up against something that had something sharp poking out. FinnAir continue to impress us. We have taken a photo and I’ll send it to them, along with the other feedback, and see if we get anywhere.
In the meantime we’ll have to get it fixed though so we’ll find a camping store and patch it. At the hostel we checked out cooking facilities before going supermarket shopping. The room we have in the hostel this time is much better than the one we had last week so we are pleased about that. It does have a combined bathroom/toilet though about the size of a hot water cupboard and there is also a rather annoying rattle but we’ll see how we go.
There are a few things on the agenda such as the Fortress of Suomenlinna and going to Seurasaari Island which has an open air museum. We’ll get a “Helsinki Card” which gives us entrance to heaps of things as well as a bus and a canal tour plus public transport. €54 per adult for 48 hours is a good deal.
There is also a fun park which we saw on the route. They have a current offer of free entry and 11 rides free for children. Just across the road is a large playground so that’s the provisional plan for Tuesday.
After dinner I went online
and saw the result of the Super 15. A complete travesty. The Hurricanes, clearly the best team of the competition, had their rightful title taken away by the sheep-worrying, cousin-rooting “I am my own Grandpa” southern hicks. Time for the Super 15 to be abolished if that’s the way things are going.
Sunday 5 July:
A sunny day followed a sunny night! 5:30am and it was all systems go. We ended up walking into the city about 8:30 and having a pastry and coffee as the city wasn’t quite awake yet!
We bought our “Helsinki Cards” and went and booked the bus tour of the city and the harbour tour. That gave us time to go to Market Square and check out the market and the harbour. The bus tour was very good and very informative. I was surprised to learn that Finland has only been an autonomous, independent country since 1917. Prior to that the Russians controlled it and for much of its history it has been part of Sweden. We stopped to visit the Sibelius Monument as part of the trip and noted the large number of playgrounds and
mini-golf courses in the city – all of which Zachary would like to visit! So we’ll discuss our options for Tuesday.
When we got back Heather and Zachary had a fruit and cream stuffed crepe while I settled for a hot dog. Zachary is a recent convert to pancakes and based on the speed with which he inhaled this one he is making up for previous lost opportunities!
Next on the agenda was a trip to Seurasaari, one of countless islands in the area. Here they have an open-air museum in which they have a variety of re-created / re-furnished traditional Finnish houses and other buildings. It was very good. As a bonus they had a mission for children to complete. In four of the buildings they were given a challenge (such as working out who slept where or finding an object). When they completed a challenge their card was stamped. Zachary completed all the challenges with minimal help and then went to collect his reward which we were pleasantly surprised to find was a very nice 24 piece puzzle of an old Finnish sailing ship.
We had an ice cream
(the one thing in Finland we have found horrendously expensive) and made our way back to Market Square to go on the harbour cruise. While this was good we didn’t get full benefit out of it as we had already had a busy day and Zachary started to go a bit potty. But it was interesting to see how Helsinki has been developed.
We hadn’t planned to be out for dinner but as it was now 6pm we found a place called Southern Fried Chicken to eat. This was like KFC, but much better.
Back to the hostel then and Zachary off to bed and asleep at 8:30pm. Hopefully a longer sleep tonight. Tomorrow we are going to the island of Suomenlinna where there is a sea fortress, a submarine, and some museums (including a toy museum) to see. We’ll also go on the SkyWheel and we also have to sort out getting our backpack mended and organise sending a parcel of some excess stuff to the Hoffmanns. The weather forecast for the next couple of days isn’t so great but hopefully the rain stays away.
Very impressed with what we have seen of Helsinki. I was surprised when I found out it only has a population of about 500,000. Infrastructure is very good and it is a (mostly)clean and attractive city. The public transport is good and I think it is the most child-friendly city we have been to. They even have a special tourist info guide for children. A shame about those negative 25 degree temperatures in winter!
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