Day 11: From Finland to Sweden

Turku to Mariehamn with Viking Ferry.  Ride across Åland to Eckerö, catch ferry to Grisslehamm, then ride 20km to Fawlty Towers near Hallstavik

Our room - B&B Tuure, Turku

Turku from the Viking ferry

On the top deck, before the cold wind
got to us!

A lot of engines at the bottom of the funnel

Seaside villages

Summer Holidays!

So a big day!  We started early being carefully packed up the night before.  Breakfast at ½ past 7, then on the bikes down to the harbour to catch the ferry to Mariehamm,  Åland.  Åland ‘belongs’ to Finland, but is autonomous, having its own parliament and flag even.  But it feels much more Swedish, all the signs are in Swedish and it is a very tidy and well kept place.  But we had a ferry to catch on the other side of the island and weren’t sure of the road ahead, so we pushed off and headed west on Highway 1 (there were only 3 highways anyway!)

Thanks MS Amorella, Viking Line

Midsommar Pole still standing

The flowers & greenery have died, but the other decorations
are still there - this pole is typical of Åland

The country-side sounded much the same with tweeting birds and a breeze in the trees, but already the pines were outnumbering the birch trees.  There was a lot more farmland than I had thought, with very healthy crops of potatoes coming along nicely and signs saying “Nypotatis” very hard to ride past and ignore!  And Loppis signs everywhere!!

No time to stop for coffee here

Are we going the right way, Gary?

Three flags: Sweden Åland & Finland

Our ride to Sweden awaits

Haloumi with heaps of yummy vegies

Or chicken and vegies!

The ride was really nice though – a bit of traffic but the drivers are so considerate so no worries and bike paths a lot of the way.  We made really good time, 20kph average, even some not too serious hills included.  The ferry was smaller but still crowded with day shoppers – stocking up on their alcohol collection and Toblerone – and playing the pokies.  It is quite a different experience, travelling on these ferries as a lot of people travel to Åland to take advantage of the duty free shopping.    Anyway a comfortable 2 hours chugging across the Baltic sea to Sweden. 

We arrived at 7:30 Sweden time, having gained an hour in the crossing, so back onto our sturdy steeds and another dash of about 20km to get to Langer’s Hotel (alias Fawlty Towers).  The traffic from the ferry was a little tiresome in the beginning  – bus loads of happy shoppers going back to Uppsala, trucks and cars – but soon we had the road to ourselves and we were back into to forest lands with pretty rich looking farmlands – large establishments with huge barns and plenty of healthy crops of grain already with heads of grain ripening in the long hours of sunshine. 

I haven’t been whingeing about the weather because it’s been really good – quite warm in fact – and at last riding in shorts and short-sleeved shirts!!  We must be on a holiday!!

Langers Hotel, alias Fawlty Towers

The main dining room

A game of pool?  or rest by the fireplace maybe?

Good night!

Langer’s hotel was a mixture of Swedish / English old-fashioned but luxurious hotel.  It has a really good feel to it and I would highly recommend it to anyone in the general area – in fact go out of the way to stay there.  Apparently ‘Basil’ is a well-known DJ in Sweden and there is a feeling of ‘pop-star’ somehow within a traditional home….  Yeah I know!!  But it works!
And when we arrived the kitchen was still open – I think when Anna is there the kitchen is open!  Karina had chicken, but I asked for vegetarian and received a large plate of vegies, same as Karina but with slices of Haloumi cheese – hmmmmmmmmmm my favourite!!  So smiles all round!!

We didn’t have time for a game of pool in the drawing room near our room, or time to lounge in the comfy sofa in front of a fireplace (well, its summer and no fire) but this hotel screamed “comfort” every which way…  and our beds were calling us.

Sweet dreams

Two little teddies to
watch over us!

So now in Sweden – our Finnish adventure over and just memories now. 

 My computer stats:  58km – 2:54hr riding time – 20kph avg: max 41kph

Day 10: Moomining and Turku

Canola in flower, southern Finland

Farm shed, Sth Finland

Still some wildflowers to see

Last night, while the sun was still high in the sky, ie 9:20pm, and once we managed to get a guard to put our bikes on board, we climbed onto a nice modern train in Rovaniemi, found our sleeper cabin and got settled for the night.  It is so hard not to sit up and watch the scenery fly past and catch rays of sunshine, but when its 10:30pm and tomorrow is another day of exploring stuff, one has to pull the blind down and just go to bed.  So we did.  We had an early start in the morning as we had to change trains at 5:30am getting off the Helsinki train and catching the local train to Turku.  A tad worrying as no guard showed up to put the bikes in the luggage van, so we had to manage on our own, plus help an elderly Finnish woman, with her old clunker also.  But soon we were on our way again for another 2 hours.

There was lots of sunshine and apart from dozing a bit, the countryside changed back to more farming lands, some crops even had heads of grain – compared to those near Rovaniemi that were just coming out of the ground.  We had one bit of excitement – an älg (or moose if you are American) dashed back into the forest and we both saw it!!  Exciting stuff!  And he had antlers too!!

We arrived in Turku and with a bit of a deviation, found the B&B Tuure that Em & M and me & Matias stayed in and now Karina too – it’s a bit of a family tradition happening here, but they are really nice people and it’s a clean and tidy place.  We were able to have breakfast here too, which was really great!  But the big thing!!  A washing machine! So we ran thru 2 loads and hung them before getting on our bikes for a ride.

Bike way leading west to Naantali

Nice shady park on a nice sunny day

The bridge to Moomin Land

Gary Garmin had a bit of wandering lust today, so he took us on a bit of jaunt out to Naantali – but along the way we spotted a bike path sign saying “To Turku” so we decided to go back that way.  We eventually got into Naantali and ended up on the esplanade where the “in” crowd hang out.  It was lined with eateries – felt a bit like Sunshine Coast – especially as it was a nice, warm and sunny day, too! 

We found the bridge to the Island of Moomins and crossed over.  Got slugged a pretty hefty fee to enter, but by then we were pretty hungry so tracked down lunch.  We went to the first eatery, but on hind sight might have got a tastier meal somewhere else.  A very bland buffet – well for a vego – frozen vegies microwaved, a couple of salads – No Cheese, can you believe it????  Or eggs, so I went back for seconds in the salads.  Karina was OK as the pasta salad did have tuna maybe and there were of course, meatballs. 

What's happening at Theatre Emma?

Moomin houses in background

Now - where's Moomin Papa?

Then we went for a stroll around Moomin land –( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomin for more info) and got some photos of Moomin Papa – Erica’s favourite.  They were pretty well surrounded by adoring children that just wanted to be hugged by them. 

There he is!

which one is that?

and there's Little My

What were Moominpappa's memories?

Also Little My poked her tongue out at us, so got that on camera too!  It was a bit of fun, but in hindsight, its probably a good idea to get out there early, before all the ankle-biters get tired and start to throw tanties around 2pm – ie when we were there!  There was a chill out area for the kids, with hammocks and soft cushions and there were a fair few there J
So we found the bike path back into town – and a very pleasant one it was too and apart for road works messing up the signage and getting us a tad confused, we purled back into town, in time for a shower and a stroll down town.  Even caught a bit of the sun today, had forgotten to put sunscreen on! 

Not sure who that is, but it's kinda cute

Moomin Papa's big boat

Karina agreeing with LillaMi

Even bare legs & arms today!

Now what's on this menu?

We checked out Harald’s for dinner and had planned to have dessert somewhere else, but were too full of smoked soy cheese (tofu) pancake (more like a bread) and a pile of vegies & beans, while Karina had the lamb stew (big chunks) with honey-roast vegies and smoked cheese in mashed potatoes.  All pretty rich and very filling.

Inside Harald's - Viking style

Starter: toasted rye bread dipped in melted butter

Lamb with Ligonberry

Tofu with vegies and lots of cream!!

Big ducks in Turku

And very large cathedrals - spot Karina at the
bottom of the stairs - it is massive!

We strolled back along the river to the Cathedral.  It looked like the whole population of the city were out sunning themselves on the river bank listening to an old time dance band were belting out some tunes for the oldies to foxtrot around too.  Summertime!!!!!!!  We went down to the Cathedral, but didn’t go in.  It is just massive and it does make one feel a tad small when you are close by.  Turku used to be the capital of Finland when the Swedes where in charge, before the Russians took over and declared Helsinki capital.  I think I much prefer the Swedish version!!  The weather here has been really pleasant (as it was in 2010, Matias) and its amazing what a bit of sunshine can do to one’s spirits.

So our last real day in Finland.  Tomorrow, it’s the ferry to Åland, ride across that island to catch another ferry to Sweden, ending up at ‘Fawlty Towers’ in Hallstavik???? 

PS: I have checked my settings in this blog and I think I have ticked the right box so that you can now post a comment - if there is anyone who would like to....

Day 9: Rovaniemi

We woke to grey skies again – quite heavy rain showers and chilly air temps.  We packed up roughly and headed off for breakfast – which consisted of generous amounts of the usual – tho whole wheat porridge was different, but very yummy.  Proteined up with omelette – and carbed up with croissant with jam!  All good!
We are both suffering a little from our midnight walk last night –we didn’t get to bed until after 1:30 – after walking around in the daylight at midnight. It was great to take photos at midnight without all these silly tourists getting in the wayJ

We went over to the shopping mall and bought some souvenirs for posting and organised a letter from Santa for a little special girl I know!!  Then loaded up bikes and headed downhill back to Rovaniemi city.  Our plan was to find a laundry – an ongoing issue – but failed.  They don’t do same day delivery and there’s no coin laundries in Rovaniemi!!!  There’s gotta be somewhere to make a comment about that.  We got back to railway station, stuffed our things into lockers and went to the café to have lunch. (with wifi!)  Mushroom soup with breads, salad, juice & coffee sorted me out, while Karina scoffed down the Dish of the Day – sausages wrapped in bacon and mashed potatoes.  She said they were pretty good too!  We’re storing energy for our big day of riding in Sweden!!

Nice bike path in Rovaniemi

Then we went off looking for the cemetery where Karina’s great grandparents lay.  This took us off on a nice bike ride – we must say we have been lucky since lunchtime – no more rain – still pretty chilly, but we are getting tougher.  Tho the mossies are still a bit tiring!  Anyways, we rode along a bike path, far too far – but it was very pleasantly lined with wildflowers and heaps of pilfinks and sädersäla to keep a birdwatcher happy!  We eventually decided we had missed the turn, so we chucked a uey and headed back to town.  We could see the Orthodox Church spire, so we headed for that as I wanted to see that also.  The young girl in there eventually worked out where the cemeteries were, so after looking thru the rather new - but very nice church -  we headed off, past the university to the No4 cemetery. 



So lets get past this lake first...





Orthodox Church, Rovaniemi

 

The Pulpit

An interesting mural

small scale stained glass

Church interior - quite modern

Pipe organ up the back - as usual

Car or bike park at Cemetery 4, Rovaniemi

Typical rock wall around cemeteries

Ville & Hilda's gravesite

After the head stone was cleaned

Then the sun came out

At the front gate to Cemetery 4





Flat tyre No 1

Just a side note of history on Rovaniemi. There's nothing much old left in Rovaniemi. At the end of WWII, the Germans razed Rovaniemi to the ground basically. They were leaving just ahead of the Russians arriving, so didn't want to leave anything left for them.  Hence even the churches were burnt and I guess that's why the Orthodox Church is pretty bland, it was built in 1953 and lacks all that old charm of faded painted wallpaintings and heaps of lovely stained glass. 


Anders had told us the row number – E8 – so we were easily able to track down the site for Ville Juho & Hilda Oikarainen. There were new summer flowers planted but the lichen was starting to cover the names and dates, so we spent some time cleaning the face of the stone, to make it easy to read the dates. It was sad to that they had died within 3 weeks – or maybe that’s how she wanted it. Or were they both ill with something… it was in 1949 that they died, so they had survived WWII. They were both relatively young, 66 & 61 –but times were different then. It was so good to track down this site.

Pizza - Finnish style

So we have come back to the railway station, after fixing a flat tyre on Karina’s bike.  We had ridden through some broken glass and she managed to collect some.  We’ve about 3 hours to wait until our train leaves for Turku – a sleeper is booked so all will be well. 

 We shall be bright as buttons tomorrow morning when we arrive in Turku – in time for a 20km dash out to Moomin land and another 20km back before lunching at Harald’s viking restaurant  - well, that’s the plan.  Will laundry get in the way of a good plan or will we just continue to float along in a haze of grot!  Who knows! 

Stay tuned and all (well maybe not All) will be revealed!