Bellarine Traveller: En-route to Kuopio

We arrived in Helsinki at 10.00am and it was a beautiful sunny day. It was 9 degrees when we arrived and by the end of the day it was 16 degrees.

Helsinki Harbour is a very busy harbour as ferries run to and from many places including the Baltic States, Sweden and Russia.

The harbour has many small islands not that far from the shore. In the winter the sea freezes. The locals often ski on the frozen sea over to the islands. They can’t skate as the surface is too rough. People also walk to over to the islands.

On arrival in Helsinki we did a half day tour of the city area:

§ First we went to Temppeliaukio Kirkko - otherwise known as the “Rock Church”. This is unlike any church I have ever been to. It is an underground Rock Church and is built inside a massive block of natural granite in the middle of a residential square. The structure is barely visible from outside. You can only the copper dome poking out of the rock. Inside, the church is circular and enclosed by walls that are all bare rock. The ceiling is a giant disc made of copper wire that does resemble a basket. It is a normal church, but because of the quality of the acoustics they do have some music recitals and concerts there – an unusual but stunning building. There is a website so if you are keen to know more, just Google ‘Rock Church Helsinki’.

§ Sibelius Monument – this monument honours a famous Finnish composer. The monument is a contemporary sculpture that did create a bit of controversy when it was completed. It does however resemble the pine forests where the composer used to walk to get inspiration for his music – I thought it was a really nice contemporary sculpture

§ We did see the magnificent Lutheran Cathedral that is located on a high point in the city. It did remind me a bit of Sacre Coeur in Paris – a very large beautiful white building. On the square below the Catedral there was a promotional market. Each region in Finland was promoting food and goods from the different regions. It was interesting to see Reindeer skins, reindeer sausages, and many different kinds of biscuits and traditional cloth to make into traditional clothing.

§ We then walked about a block towards the harbour and there was a traditional weekly market that sold a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables and other food stuff. There were many food stalls that were popular with both the locals and the many tourists. You could eat things like salmon soup, fried whitebait, reindeer sausages etc. There were also stalls that sold some traditional handcrafts. Some of these were quite different and interesting.

§ Helsinki was where the 1952 Olympic Games were held. The stadium is used now for many sports and they do have a couple of statues there, one being of the “Flying Finn” Paavo Nurmi and one of Lasse Viren – he is the athlete who at the Munich Games fell over, got up and then won a Gold Medal.

The following day we travelled to Kuopio which is located in what they call ‘The land of 1000 lakes” but in fact there are more that 1.5 million lakes in Finland. Yes, the number is correct – some large and some small. It was not until we reached Kuopio and went up into a viewing tower that we could see just how much water there is in this area. This is a lovely town and we had the opportunity to walk down by one of the lakes that is also a harbour. People to do live on some of the islands and there are regular ferries that run like taxis or buses to and from the town.

Since arriving in Sweden and Finland I have been surprised by a few things:

(1) The roads are in very good repair. Considering the amount of snow they get they must work hard to keep them like they are.

(2) Along the freeways in both countries there is a solid wire fence about 2 metres in height that runs parallel to the freeways on both sides of the road. This is to keep the deer from running onto the road.

(3) Travelling along one of the freeways, it suddenly became much wider with large yellow lines down the middle. Several freeways in Finland double as runways for planes. They can, and are sometimes used by the Military and also by emergency planes (e.g. ambulances, police etc).

(4) Driving into Kuopio we noticed in car parks besides apartments blocks a number of ‘power poles’ similar to what we see in caravan parks. In the winter people need to plug their cars into these overnight to keep the motors warm, otherwise the motors freeze. When they do bus tours here during the winter months, they need to plug the buses into a power outlet, but they also need to keep the bus motor running all night as well!

Where I am now, it is almost light 24 hours a day. Because the sun has been shining the locals are really making the most of it.

In this area the winters are very long, very cold (sometimes up to minus 40 degrees) and very long dark days. Children do attend school on a Saturday mornings. This is to make up for the hours when they cannot attend during the long dark winters. We have been told many people suffer from depression during the winter and I am not a bit surprised.

I have woken a couple of times during the night and it is daylight, at 3.00am! You do think you won’t go back to sleep, but so far I have. The hotels here all have dark curtains, but the light does seem to come in.

Fingers crossed that the weather continues to be kind to us.....