Tampere.

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We went to visit Tampere yesterday, it's about 78 km away from Hameenlinna. We caught the train at about one and arrived at two o'clock-ish, Tampere reminded me so much of Cardiff, the station and the city center. The only difference was it wasn't raining and the buildings were beautiful! We stopped for food at mcdonalds- more shocking than anything was that they had a brown bread burger haha!! it was nice to sit and people watch for a while, everyone in Tampere seemed to dress better than those in Hameenlinna, here everyone is quite goth-y looking or punky or completely sporty- you can imagine how much i stick out like a sore thumb with my big jumpers and flowery shorts..We went to the tourist info point to get some information on where to go and what direction to head in, i knew i really wanted to visit the Näsinneula tower, the tallest tower in finland and in the northern nordic countries its 168 meters tall and has a revolving restaurant in the middle so that you can get a 360 degree view of Tampere and the lake. We didn't go up as it was 23EUR and we didn't have time because we wanted to see as much as we could, so back on the bikes, (yes the bikes came too and even though i have a major love hate relationship with Bob the Bike he was a life saver yesterday.) After the tower we rode to the other side of the city to see Tampere cathedral, it was beautiful, the whole structure had like a glitter in the stone so it shone in the light. We couldn't go inside as there was a private function on but i took so many photos for my uni work back home of the outside i think i have more than enough pictures of the cathedral.

We then tried to look for some gardens that were meant to be beautiful but by this time my hangover was ruining my life and riding through the woods was like deja-vu of the 11 mile hike last weekend. There was a massive Jettie sticking out into the water it was like 40 meters out and it was amazing, i would have happily stayed there all day with my feet in the water and the sun everywhere- it was fab!

On the way to a park to kill sometime we found another church, tampere orthodox church. The sun was bouncing off all the gold details and the tower was like a turquoise, the sky wa so blue that all of the colours together were stunning. We were able to go in and take pictures, there was a service on when we went in but as long as we were quiet we were okay to go in and take photographs.

It was getting late and we had already decided to catch the nine o'clock train back to Hameenlinna and after a complete cuffuffle with the bikes and the train on the way home we got home about 10.30. Tonight we're all eating together and cooking mexican as a house 😊. Sash this makes me miss you and our fajita nights loads and loads!!!

missing everyone loads!



Total: 6/09/2014

hours of sleep: seven.

Miles rode: too many to count at least 8 as it was 3 just to the train station and home.

money spent: 64 EUR

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