Part 8 - Finland

Part 8 – Finland

Our plan included spending 3 nights in Finland.  This section includes our drive across Sweden to get to the ferry, the ferry ride across the Baltic Sea from Umeå Sweden to Vaasa Finland, as well as the three days/nights spent in Finland. 

Day 37– Tuesday, July 23. Holmsund, Sweden.  The drive through Sweden to our hotel near the ferry terminal was long but uneventful.  The scenery along the way was prettier than that in the southern part of Sweden.  There were rolling hills, lots of lakes, and beautiful rivers.  The land was mostly forested (with larger trees than in southern Sweden) interspersed with areas of farmland.  We stopped at Max Burger in Örnsköldsvik for dinner.  There was a ski jump right across the street.  I had never seen an urban ski jump before.  After landing spot the slope went under the railroad tracks, and the final up slope to stop was elevated over a service station.  Very creative way to wedge the ski jump into a small area!   We arrived at our hotel about 8 PM.   Total distance driven in our second time in Sweden, 340 miles (550 km). Total distance driven to date, 4410 miles (7090 km). 

Roadside river

Ski jump - that ramp on the left is where the jumpers stop

Day 38 – Wednesday, July 24. Tampere, Finland.  The ferry left at 8 AM, and although we had reservations we still needed to arrive at the ferry terminal no later than 7 AM.  Fortunately I had booked a hotel that was less than 5 minutes to the ferry terminal.  As the first one to always get up, I had the joy of getting everyone out of bed at ~5:30.  Our family are not early risers, and it takes a long time to get everyone through one bathroom in the morning.  However, this morning went better than expected – thank you family!  After packing and eating breakfast we headed to the ferry terminal.  The ship left on schedule for a 4 hour cruise to Vaasa Finland.  We would lose an hour today as we changed time zones to GMT-2, so we would be arriving in Finland at about 1PM.  We would stay in this time zone until we reached Poland at which time we would transition back to GMT-1 for the rest of our trip.  Karen wanted to lay down and sleep, so we found a quiet place in the bar that had a large sectional type sofa that you could lie down on.  It was nice for a while, but then the bar opened up and a band showed up and started to play.  It was no longer quiet, but at least it was reasonably comfortable.  We used our last Swedish money on board to buy some snacks.  We had spent most of it the previous night to fill the car up with fuel.   Our next two countries both use the Euro, so we won’t have to deal with “local currency” until we get to Latvia.  Perhaps we can even get by with Euros there.  Denmark does not use the Euro, but we did not go to an ATM or bank there to get Danish currency.  We were able to use our credit card most places and the places that only accepted cash took Euros.  We did get some Danish krone as change, and then spent that at the next place that we made a cash purchase.  Certainly being able to use the Euro in half the countries makes it easier than pre-EU days when every country had their own currency, and you had to estimate how much cash you would spend or go to the bank in the next country and exchange the unused bills.

Our first goal after arriving in Finland was to find food.  Hungry or tired travelers are not happy travelers!  We stopped at a huge ABC! gas station a few km outside of Vaasa that had several restaurants inside.   We then continued on to our evening destination in Tampere.  After checking in to our hotel we drove into the city center.  Tampere is located between two large lakes, with a short river connecting them.  There is a difference in elevation between the lakes, and the Tammerkoski Rapids on this waterway made this a prime development spot during the industrial revolution.  At onetime Tampere had the nickname “Manchester of Finland”.   James Finlayson established a small mill here in 1820, and later built a huge cotton mill.  Today this large brick building has been converted into a mall of cafes and shops, but its exterior has been preserved.  There are numerous other large brick mill buildings along the river that have been preserved and converted to other uses.  We had dinner in a restaurant in the Finlayson Centre, and walked around the core part of town, crossing over the river to go to Tuomiokirkko, a cathedral which is one of the best examples of National Romantic architecture in Finland.   We then returned to our hotel to get some must needed sleep after the two previous long travel days.

Old mill building

Tuomiokirkko

Day 39 – Thursday, July 25. Helsinki.  We slept in, leaving our hotel around 11.  We had an appointment to check into our Helsinki apartment at 6PM, so we looked for options to best utilize the time that we had as driving direct to Helsinki only required about 2 hours.  We decided to go to Porvoo, which is northeast of Helsinki.  Porvoo is Finland’s second oldest city, founded in 1346.  We did a self-guided walking tour of the old town.  The old town is located on the bank of the river, and has lots of wooden buildings on narrow cobblestone streets.  We went into the cathedral, and a number the shops.  The free guide that we picked up at the tourist information office described the significance of the other buildings on the walking tour, but none were open for the public to go in.  Getting around Porvoo was a bit of a challenge for me.  Many of the towns we have been in have cobblestone streets, but most of them are flat cobblestones.  In Porvoo, many of the cobblestones are round river rock.  That makes it difficult to use the crutches as you have to methodically select where to place them, and also makes it difficult for me use my left foot and not put pressure on the front when the ground surface is so uneven.  Porvoo also had some steep hills coming up from the river.  However, we had plenty of time and I was able to complete the whole walking tour with the rest of the family.

The Old Bridge

Shore houses on Porvoonjoki (Porvoo River)

Bishops House

When we left Porvoo we had less than an hour drive to get to our apartment in Helsinki.  Similar to Stockholm, we stayed in an apartment that was in a building without a reception – most of the units are rented out on a longer term basis by locals, but some of the units are rented to tourists on a short term basis.  We met the representative at the apartment to get the keys and instructions.  There was a washing machine so I stayed at the apartment to get laundry started while the rest of the family went to get some groceries and dinner.  All I have to say is Google translate is wonderful when trying to use an appliance that only has Finish words on it and which is unlike any washer you have used before.    The biggest challenge ended up being figuring out how to get the water turned on to the washer.  There was a little lever under the faucet on the bathroom sink – Google translate couldn’t help with that!  Karen and the kids ate dinner at the pizza restaurant before coming back, and they were going to order a small pizza to go for me.  However, the owner (who they had been talking to while they were there) gave them a pizza for me at no charge.  Thanks!  After dinner we finished mapping out our plans for the following day in Helsinki.

Day 40 – Friday, July 26. Helsinki.  We bought day transit passes at a kiosk a short walk from our apartment and found the bus stop a short distance away that would take us down to the central part of town.  Full day passes cost EUR 8 for adults, and EUR 4 for the kids.  This included the ferry to Suomenlinna (more on that later).   We got off the bus about 8 blocks from the waterfront.  We started our sightseeing at the Lutheran Cathedral, which was adjacent to Senate Square.  After visiting the cathedral and Senate Square we went down to Kauppatori, Helsinki’s market square.   Kauppatori is down by the waterfront, and there are more than 100 vendors selling fresh fish, fruit and vegetables, ready to eat food, and all sorts of crafts.  We looked around and bought some crepes and cinnamon rolls to eat.   Our next and primary destination in Helsinki was Suomenlinna.  This former fortress located on several island is located about a 15 minute ferry ride from the Helsinki waterfront.  The ferries run every 20 minutes from the wharf by Kauppatori.   Originally named Sveaborg, the fortress was built in 1748 by the Swedish to protect against the Russians.  It was conquered in 1808 and became a Russian naval base for the next 100 years until Finland gained its independence.  We had lunch on the island, went to the museum, and walked around to see some of the fortifications and buildings.   Most interesting was the massive dry dock.  It is one of the oldest dry docks still in use, dating from the 1760’s. 

Lutheran Cathedral

Sveaborg dry dock

Old defense walls at Sveaborg

We decided to split up late afternoon.  I was tired from walking with crutches on all the cobblestones, and Karen and the kids were planning to go to a traditional Finnish sauna later which I decided to skip given my foot.  Karen and the kids went back to the ferry terminal while I took a break.  After the ferry they went to the Uspenskin Katedraali (Uspenski Catherdral) which in on nearby Katajanokka island.  This cathedral was built as a Russian Orthodox Church in 1868 during the period when Russia controlled Finland.  It sits on top of a small hill with a great view of the Lutheran Cathedral which is located a few hundred meters away on another hill.  They then had dinner before heading to the traditional wood fired Finnish sauna.  I took my time waling back to the ferry, and also went to Uspenskin Katedraali.  After the cathedral I walked back across the bridge and caught a bus back to our apartment.  I had only been back about 30 minutes when Matthew arrived.  After dinner he was not feeling well so he took the bus back to the apartment while Karen and Elizabeth went to the sauna.  They enjoyed their time at the sauna and got back to the apartment a couple of hours later.

Uspenski Catherdral

Day 41 – Saturday, July 27. Onward to the Baltic countries.  We had reservations for a ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn, Estonia, departing at 1:30 PM.   We packed up and departed for the ferry terminal around noon.   Total distance driven in Finland, 530 miles (330 km). Total distance driven to date, 4740 miles (7620 km).  Our favorite things in Finland were:  Matthew and Mike – Suomenlinna, Karen – the sauna, Elizabeth– the sauna and the fact that the churches were less gaudy than others we had been to.

Other observations:  Finns must either like to gamble more or have more liberal laws on where gambling can occur.  As soon as we got on the ferry from Sweden to Finland we noticed slot machines and video poker machines, and they were also at service stations and other places that we stopped at while in Finland.  We had not seen this in other countries – either they are not allowed, are more tightly restricted, or less popular in other countries.