Category: Northern Europe – Aug-Oct 2024

Today was mainly a travel and rest day. We spent most of the afternoon on the bus from Turku to Helsinki. In Helsinki we walked from the bus station to the Radisson RED Hotel where we are staying. Later we explored a bit.

Friday Mikko and Ritva took us a a wonderful tour of the Turku region. First we stopped at the Medieval church of St Bridget’s Convent

Then we went to the harbor area of Naantali. As you can tell from the pictures the weather was absolutely perfect. The high temperature yesterday was 82 degrees.

From Naantali we went to Ruissalo Folk Park. The entire island is a natural area set aside for hiking, biking and recreation.

We stopped for a delicious pea soup lunch at Ruissalon Honkapirni

On our way back to the house we stopped at Turku Cathedral.

Our final stop was to see the Caravelle FinAir jet that Mikko is helping to restore. The jet was the very first jet owned and operated by Finnair.

We got off the sleeper train at 7:30 this morning in Turku. Roger’s friend Mikko picked us up. We are staying at Mikko and his wife Ritva’s house. They are making our staying in Finland so much richer than it ever would have been without them.

We walked to the beautiful old church near their house.

On the way back from the church we saw these robots that deliver groceries.

We have been eating interesting and delicious Finnish food. The mushrooms in this tart were foraged locally.

I thought that Rovaniemi was the last place we would spend the night above the Arctic circle. But actually at our hotel in Rovaniemi we were about 4 miles below the Arctic circle.

Today was a lovely no rain day! And the high temperature was about 68 degrees.

The Arctic Lights Hotel where we stayed in Rovaniemi is one of the nicest hotels of the trip and in my opinion their breakfast buffet was the absolute best of the trip. In addition to the standards, like eggs and croissants we had sparkling cloudberry-elderflower juice, moose sausage, Finish squeaky cheese and some devine pastries.

After we checked out we walked to the Arktikum. It is a wonderful museum of Arctic Finland. I thought it was very well done. They had audio guides included in the entrance price. They could be set to any of 9 different languages.

When we were done at the Arktikum we walked through the park nearby.

Then we went back to our hotel, retrieved our bags, killed about an hour and walked to the train station. On the way we stopped at a grocery store and picked up some supplies for dinner.

Tonight we are on a sleeper train. The train goes to Helsinki but we are getting off in Turku where we will spend two nights. The train seems comfortable and clean. So far the ride has been very smooth.