(no subject)
Road Tour 2010: East Finland
We are back from our road trip, sweaty, filthy and happy. Spouse's premonition of us "spending half the time in torrid rain and the rest swatting mosquitoes" didn't come true, well, except for the mosquito part, which was more true than ever before. The weather gods were on our side, the sun was shining full blast all day, every day, and during the night there was usually a nice shower or two to keep the nature fresh and pretty for us city people! All in all we drove 1300 km/800 miles in a week and a half, which gave us amble time to NOT sit in the car, which was one of the main ideas in the whole trip, along with mixing kiddie attractions to history, culture and nature, not to mention loads of soaking in various lakes.
Pictures were taken (just a few short of 1500...) none of which made it in to my private hall of fame (too much light, I can't BELIEVE I'm complaining about that!). I'll try to keep the pic spam to minimum but gosh, this is just such a gorgeous country that I most likely won't be able to keep that promise! (Yes, that sentence was brought to you by a patriotic Finn who's extremely fond of her country ;)
The plan
The route (for the interested parties)...
... which actually covers just a scant one fourth of this small country.
Means of travel: our French Cupboard on Wheels, Citroen Berlingo:
Although I like Bramble's version of the same better
(Translation: "We have a really nice car! AND road!")
Along the coast
From Helsinki we drove to Porvoo (for chocolates *g*)
and from there to Kotka, a small seaside town 133 km/80 miles east of Helsinki.
This was our hotel, a manor built in 1891 *beams*
Although, as the manor only had two person rooms,
we got the gardener's house next to it to ourselves.
We were the only guests in the entire manor and got pampered beyond belief,
including full access to the entire manor and its grounds and a delicious breakfast
according to our wishes, at the hour we wanted to have it :D
Sidetrack: Alvar Aalto, a famous Finnish long dead architect, once designed a vase
called Savoy (the working title of which was "the Eskimo woman's leather breech").
Nobody calls it "Savoy" though, but "Aalto Vase", a far more fitting name as "aalto"
means "wave" in Finnish. The vase is quite pretty (if you like that sort of thing)
but utterly impractical as a vase; you'd need about 100 tulips to actually fill it.
Still, each and every Finn just MUST have one (it's a sign of a civilized family or something),
so we've been filling them with whatever: pretty stones, dust, non-working ballpoint pens and
paper clips, you get the picture. This hotel though had finally found the best use for the
thing: cereal containers! They are big enough for the purpose and definitely FINNISH, although
it amuses me greatly that a 100 euro vase is used for such a mundane purpose *g*
(These days the vases come in various sizes and purposes: there are, besides the vases, also
bowls, pot stands, candle holders, plates, ice cube trays, napkins, pot lid holders etc,
all in the Savoy shape *shakes head*)
Finland, especially the eastern part of it, is a pasty country: there are dozens of pasties
with weird names. The names, shapes, ingredients and even cooking methods vary from village to
village (from family to family?) and it never stops amusing me to ask about these pasties in a
company of several people from east Finland: the result is a heated debate about whether a
"sultsina" is made rye or wheat flour, and if the filling should be semolina or rice porridge,
and, gosh, what the SHAPE of it should be! So, here be what they call "sultsina" in Kotka,
which is a totally different pasty sold as "sultsina" in Joensuu :D
Here's Bramble having her breakfast sitting on the stairs
discarding the perfectly fine tables in- and outside!
The manor's tower room in its original glory
(there's a whiff of cigar smoke still there, I swear!)
One of the bedrooms, also with original furniture (quite many of
the rooms were like that, in their original glory, just STUNNING!)
The king and queen of Sweden stayed in this room once, there was even
a picture of them there!
A small pavillion with a lovely glass ball on top.
The Moomins would appreciate this little house, I'm sure.
The inside indicates to dancing but I wouldn't mind having it
as my personal reading/sewing/napping room either :D
Kotka
Kotka is a lovely little harbour town with very few sights (just what we wanted ;)
We visited the lovely water garden (Sapokka) and the aquarium
that only displays Finnish fish :D
I'm sure the sailors will be very happy with their new well.
(A donation box outside of a museum complex in Kotka)
Finland is supposed to be the land of "green gold", forest. We saw,
of course, endless forests everywhere, heaps of timber all over the place
but I'm still suspecting it's not paper, not even pulp that keeps
Finland afloat, but SAWDUST! There are huge mountains of the stuff
in every town, it seems. These days it's used for building particle board/chipboard,
but in former times it was the major means to insulate houses in Finland *g*
A mountain of sawdust
Fishing gear (be afraid, be very afraid, you herring in the Baltic Sea!)
We are back from our road trip, sweaty, filthy and happy. Spouse's premonition of us "spending half the time in torrid rain and the rest swatting mosquitoes" didn't come true, well, except for the mosquito part, which was more true than ever before. The weather gods were on our side, the sun was shining full blast all day, every day, and during the night there was usually a nice shower or two to keep the nature fresh and pretty for us city people! All in all we drove 1300 km/800 miles in a week and a half, which gave us amble time to NOT sit in the car, which was one of the main ideas in the whole trip, along with mixing kiddie attractions to history, culture and nature, not to mention loads of soaking in various lakes.
Pictures were taken (just a few short of 1500...) none of which made it in to my private hall of fame (too much light, I can't BELIEVE I'm complaining about that!). I'll try to keep the pic spam to minimum but gosh, this is just such a gorgeous country that I most likely won't be able to keep that promise! (Yes, that sentence was brought to you by a patriotic Finn who's extremely fond of her country ;)
The plan
The route (for the interested parties)...
... which actually covers just a scant one fourth of this small country.
Means of travel: our French Cupboard on Wheels, Citroen Berlingo:
Although I like Bramble's version of the same better
(Translation: "We have a really nice car! AND road!")
Along the coast
From Helsinki we drove to Porvoo (for chocolates *g*)
and from there to Kotka, a small seaside town 133 km/80 miles east of Helsinki.
This was our hotel, a manor built in 1891 *beams*
Although, as the manor only had two person rooms,
we got the gardener's house next to it to ourselves.
We were the only guests in the entire manor and got pampered beyond belief,
including full access to the entire manor and its grounds and a delicious breakfast
according to our wishes, at the hour we wanted to have it :D
Sidetrack: Alvar Aalto, a famous Finnish long dead architect, once designed a vase
called Savoy (the working title of which was "the Eskimo woman's leather breech").
Nobody calls it "Savoy" though, but "Aalto Vase", a far more fitting name as "aalto"
means "wave" in Finnish. The vase is quite pretty (if you like that sort of thing)
but utterly impractical as a vase; you'd need about 100 tulips to actually fill it.
Still, each and every Finn just MUST have one (it's a sign of a civilized family or something),
so we've been filling them with whatever: pretty stones, dust, non-working ballpoint pens and
paper clips, you get the picture. This hotel though had finally found the best use for the
thing: cereal containers! They are big enough for the purpose and definitely FINNISH, although
it amuses me greatly that a 100 euro vase is used for such a mundane purpose *g*
(These days the vases come in various sizes and purposes: there are, besides the vases, also
bowls, pot stands, candle holders, plates, ice cube trays, napkins, pot lid holders etc,
all in the Savoy shape *shakes head*)
Finland, especially the eastern part of it, is a pasty country: there are dozens of pasties
with weird names. The names, shapes, ingredients and even cooking methods vary from village to
village (from family to family?) and it never stops amusing me to ask about these pasties in a
company of several people from east Finland: the result is a heated debate about whether a
"sultsina" is made rye or wheat flour, and if the filling should be semolina or rice porridge,
and, gosh, what the SHAPE of it should be! So, here be what they call "sultsina" in Kotka,
which is a totally different pasty sold as "sultsina" in Joensuu :D
Here's Bramble having her breakfast sitting on the stairs
discarding the perfectly fine tables in- and outside!
The manor's tower room in its original glory
(there's a whiff of cigar smoke still there, I swear!)
One of the bedrooms, also with original furniture (quite many of
the rooms were like that, in their original glory, just STUNNING!)
The king and queen of Sweden stayed in this room once, there was even
a picture of them there!
A small pavillion with a lovely glass ball on top.
The Moomins would appreciate this little house, I'm sure.
The inside indicates to dancing but I wouldn't mind having it
as my personal reading/sewing/napping room either :D
Kotka
Kotka is a lovely little harbour town with very few sights (just what we wanted ;)
We visited the lovely water garden (Sapokka) and the aquarium
that only displays Finnish fish :D
I'm sure the sailors will be very happy with their new well.
(A donation box outside of a museum complex in Kotka)
Finland is supposed to be the land of "green gold", forest. We saw,
of course, endless forests everywhere, heaps of timber all over the place
but I'm still suspecting it's not paper, not even pulp that keeps
Finland afloat, but SAWDUST! There are huge mountains of the stuff
in every town, it seems. These days it's used for building particle board/chipboard,
but in former times it was the major means to insulate houses in Finland *g*
A mountain of sawdust
Fishing gear (be afraid, be very afraid, you herring in the Baltic Sea!)