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Published: July 29th 2012
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Day 3 started under a bit less auspicious signs with constant rain falling outside our hotel window. After eating a large breakfast (love those European hotel breakfasts) we decided to do a short stroll through downtown Turku before leaving northwards.
With an eye on the clock to ensure we do not miss the hotel checkout we walked down to the Central Square to buy fresh tomatoes, kantarelli (mushrooms) and bananas from the kauppatori (open market). On the way we stopped also in the kauppahalli (covered market) which was quite a bit more expensive. As the rain intensified we entered a supermarket where we bought provisions for the following days and then returned quite wet to the hotel.
First stop north was the Untamala Archaelogy Center with some well preserved wooden buildings and church as well some older burial mounds. Unfortunately the signs were in Finnish only and really quite uninteligible but we still liked this stop especially due to the multitude of wild strawberries we found and ate.
Continuing north we stopped in Rauma which is a Unesco World Heritage site due to its well preserved downtown consisting of a couple hundred wooden buildings that are still lived
in. Unfortunately the rain had picked up again at this point so after a short stroll and some shopping we had to retreat to the car and continue on our way.
Next stop was Sammallahdenmäki a bronze age burial site which again was a Unesco World Heritage site. Here we got lucky as the rain stopped just enough for us to take a good stroll around the site. There is a nice trail about 1.5 km long one way that goes to the main sites ("Long Ruin of Huilu" and the "Church Floor") through the forest and most information was available also in English including, if needed, a local guide. Walking around we enjoyed the quiet and tried to imagine how the area must have looked that many years ago (our conclusion was that it was very similar😊).
As the day progressed the weather improved so when we arrived at the next stop Susiluola or Wolf Cave we felt confident enough to take the Prius offroad to the parking area. With no one around we started on the trail to the cave about 0.5 km one way unfortunately uphill. However soon we forgot about the hardships as we
found lots and lots of blueberries near the trail. After getting a fill of blueberries we noticed that some of them seemed to be already harvested and then we noticed another person further uphill actually collecting blueberries using a comb like tool. Finally we arrived at the cave (largest one in Finland) which unfortunately is closed due to the important archaelogical finds made in it. Took a few pictures at the entrance and then returned back running away from the clouds of mosquitoes following us.
Late during the day we arrived at Jakobstad where we were staying in a downtown hotel in a pedestrian only zone so it took a bit just to move all our luggage to the hotel from the parking spot outside the pedestrian zone. After a hotel room dinner from our provisions we finally went to bed even though outside it was still sunny at around 11:30 pm.
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