Thursday 1 July 2010

Finland 2010Share. Friday, 22 January 2010 at 17:45 | Edit note | Delete
Karhunpesa cottage (The Bear's Den) where we'll stay in the summer.
The lake next to our cottage, Karhunpesa.

In the summer, we are heading off again for our third trip to Finland. It's our favourite country, and is a very beautiful place, especially in the summer. We drove all the way there in 2006, staying close to the Russian border and meeting up with Anna's parents. You can read all about that trip at http://scotlandtorussia2006.blogspot.com/

Then, in 2008, we returned again and stayed in two locations. Firstly, we returned to Kotka, where we again met up with Anna's family. Kotka is a beautiful coastal town on the south east coast of Finland, around 35 miles from the border with Russia. After a week there, we moved north and stayed with our friends Jyrki and Mari and their two boys in Varkaus. Varkaus is in the Finnish lakeland region and we had a really brilliant time there, enjoying lots of opportunities for Finnish pastimes such as having saunas follwed by jumping into the lakes and swimming in the surprisingly warm and pure waters there. Again, you can see lots of photos from Varkaus and Kotka 2008 at http://eurojaunts2008.blogspot.com/

Now, in 2010, we are planning our most adventurous trip so far to Finland again. This time, like in 2006, we'll take our car, and our route will be from Newcastle to Amsterdam by overnight ferry, then we'll drive to Travemunde in Northern Germany, where we'll catch a Finnlines ferry for the 27 hour journey up the Baltic Sea to Helsinki.

Due to the timings of this ferry, we'll actually spend two nights on board, and we'll arrive at 0630 in Helsinki. From there, we will drive north east, to close to Rantasalmi, which is situated about 20 minutes south of Varkaus. Our first cottage is there and it's called Karhunpesa (The Bear's Den). You can see photos of it above and below. We plan to visit Jyrki and his family again, and generally relax for a week, hopefully enjoying hot weather, saunas and lots of swimming. We may well also visit my friend Mika, who is a partner in this year's Schoolovision project, in Joensuu, a bit further north east.

After a week at our first cottage, we then move south a little, around 60km, right into the heart of the lake region, to our second cottage, Lentusen Rantapirtti. This cottage, at 140m2, is larger than the first one and it sleeps 12. Anna's mum and dad, sister Olga and her husband Kolya, and their son Arnold will join us there, perhaps also with Anna's aunt Lucia. Again, there are pictures of this cottage below.

This second cottage is close to the truly picturesque town of Puumala, and we will no doubt spend time there, along with other towns such as Juva, Savonlinna and possibly also Mikkeli. And, can you believe it, my parents and brother have also decided to join us for this second week, and so they will fly into Tampere, then spend their holiday close by at a cottage about 8 miles away from us. This will allow them to join us, and meet Anna's dad for the first time!

So, that is the plan, and after this second week, we will drive back to Helsinki to board to fantastic Silja Line ferry to Stockholm. Our route home takes us through Sweden, across the wonderful bridge linking Sweden and Denmark, across Denmark, northern Germany and the Netherlands, where we'll catch the ferry back to Newcastle. What a trip! :-)