We visited once again. It is always so beautiful and relaxing. The Seurasaari area has multiple museum areas and buildings -you need to buy a ticket if you wish to go inside those buildings. But area has also a lot of hiking pats around the island and the most amazing thing is that so many animals are so used to the people and you can feed them from your hand… You can easily feed bluetits, great tits, squirrels, mallards, swans and geese from your hand if you bring some nuts/ seeds with you. Didn’t take too many pictures this time. I had my videocamera with me!
View to Ruoholahti from the IslandView to Meilahti hospital from the Island
After packing our stuff and cleaning the cabin it was time to drive again. It was 50 km to Kuopio where we made about 2 hours stop. It was 1st time for my wife in this beautiful city. We parked the car to the new garage they have under the market square and came up to make a walk in the city center.
City Hall
Church and park
Snellman’s park
The Park
Churchdoor lock
Belltower
Market Hall
Kuopio
I have a BIG minus comment about the parking garage!! We went down to our floor (underground) from the side of this market hall and there was a sign that there will be this payment machine. But there wasn’t!! I had to walk to another elevator to find the damn thing! KUOPIO! Not like this! Our route went off from E4 highway in Juva but I had chosen quite small gravel road. Finally we entered the Pistohiekka & Lietvesi area. There is one special viewing point just beside the road.
Lietvesi viewing poin
From here it was only 80km’s to Imatra so in the afternoon we’re back in our house in Meltola. The summertour was over. The route for this day was like this:
After sleeping in a car quite many nights and 2 nights in a camping area cabin and 1 in a room with kitchen it was time to take a hotel room. We drove to Tromsø and took 2 days in the hotel (Smarthoel Tromsø was very cheap!) The way to Tromsø was with one ferry -from Svensby to Breivikeidet. This was about 13€. After we put all our stuff to the hotel room we went to check Arctic-Alpine Botanic Garden. This was very nice visit! So many beautiful flowers and plants!!
Amazing colourful flowers
The area of this Arctic-Alpine is not too big but we checked all the flowers quite closely! After the garden it was to time to go UP! The cable car of Tromsø is called Fjellheisen and it will take you to 420 meters above sea level!
Fjellheisen
The weather was little bit better than it was in morning so we could actually see something from up there! And took some nice pictures! In the evening we were eating pizza just beside our hotel. The restaurant was called Casa Inferno and with the price little bit over 20€ we ate very nice pizzas!
Local traditional food
The route for this day was like this:
Day 9
Like I said we didn’t move anywhere from Tromsø. But this second day it was already raining. So we visited the Polaria. We saw quite many fishes and plants and also the feeding “show” of the seals. They had 2 small seals (Harbour Seal) and 2 big ones (Bearded Seal). The show was quite nice and these guys knew few tricks. Everytime they did some nice trick the stuff gave them the reward. But I was thinking why they had to be there in this small pool??? Why they will not them to go free?
Sea anemoneSmall moray
The most interesting “show” was the short movie about Svalbard. That would really be interesting place to visit! The movie was mostly about how the landscape has been changing there. All the glaciers are soon gone… In the evening we had a dinner in Asian place called Tang’s restaurant. About this We would give even bigger recommendations because the price was almost “normal”. This day there was almost no driving at all.
Day 7 was about driving west in quite cloudy and grey weather. It was a big pitty because there is many places to admire the landscape and the view to the sea.
Few pictures from the E6 to the Arctic Sea
We took also 1 ferry from Olderdalen to Lyngen. It was about 17€ and took about 50 minutes. But soon after this ferry we arrived to our destination! Blåvatnet This is a small lake located in Lyngen municipality in northern Norway. Area is also famous about Lyngen Alps where the shape of the mountains is more steep than ordinary fjells or mountains in Norway. The highest peak is Jiekkevarre with 1833 meters. Blåvatnet is one of the most famous hiking places in northern Norway. The lake is about 200 meters higher than the parking area and it’s about 4km’s walk. The landscape is rugged with lots of stones and small rivers to cross. Luckily for us it looked like it would not start raining. We started the walk up to the lake about 3.40 pm.
River after river
Wooden paths
Amazing views
And river
And river
This rock was about in the halfway
Clouds over the mountains
Rugged land
And river
Getting closer
The walls of Mordor!
Almost 2 hours hike to the lake
I was little bit afraid when the weather is so grey that we will not see the amazing crystal clear blue colour of the lake. But there was no reason! The water of the lake comes straight from the glaciers in the mountains and it stays very very crystal clear all the time!
Blåvatnet
The last 200 meters hike to the lake is quite difficult! The stones are big and sharp and there’s many chances to step wrong and twist your ankle or even worse. The consentration and physical struggle made me sweat quite a lot. Now I understood why quite many said to take your swimming pants so you can swim in the lake! I didn’t have them with me (So stupid!) so I just took off my jacket and t-shirt and flushed my upper body in the lake! On the way back I took only 3 pictures -Here’s one of them:
6.30 pm in Northern Norway
When you search the pictures of Blåvatnet you will ofcourse find those ones first that was taken in sunny weather and with clear blue sky. But when you come here you can’t choose your conditions and weather. We are very happy that we saw the lake at least without rain! The route for the Day 7 was like this:
Vyborg is a city that was part of Grand Duchy of Finland from 1812 to 1917 and part of independent Finland from 1917 to 1940 but was finally lost to Russia after World War II. Russia made it now possible to apply e-visa for a short visit in St. Petersburg area so this is what I did. Me and my wife took the border crossing in Svetogorsk and because it was first time for me in Finland-Russia border it took nearly 1,5 hours to get through all the papers and documents. But we knew it will be like this so we were at the border quite early. We took a short stop at Svetogorsk centrum.
Svetogorsk is a smelly city… They have old paper factories.
From this not-so-beautiful-city we took a one hour drive to Vyborg. There I made a short stop at the train station. There is still parts of the original train station left but that was destroyed in WWII. It was originally quite accurate copy (smaller size) of Helsinki railway station.
Vyborg railway station
But finally I stopped my car in the market square. And we were lucky it wasn’t raining so we could explore the city on foot.
Vyborg castle
Market Hall
Buildings on the other side of Market Square
Ruined buildings
Old Town Hall
Transfiguration Cathedral from the inside
Cat inside Transfiguration Cathedral
The only Lutheran church “Saints Peter and Paul church”
Round Tower
Vyborg
There are many buildings in very bad condition or totally ruined in Vyborg. But luckily some of the buildings they are renovating so there will be something to see in the future also. The city is definitely much more nice to see in the summer but we thought it was beautiful also now in the beginning of december… On a very grey weather. After the city tour we took a walk also in the famous Monrepo Park.
Pavilion
Ludwigstein castle
Väinämöinen
View from the hill
STATE HISTORICAL-ARCHITECTURAL AND NATURAL MUSEUM-RESERVE MONREPO PARK
In tourist maps this area is sometimes called as a National Park. But mostly there are some buildings, Art, Statues and other “things” in this area so it’s not a “normal” national park. Half of the area is under construction so we could see only the other side of the park. This would be totally amazing place to visit on a beautiful summer day! I hope I will come cack to this beautiful town again some day. And of course Saint Petersburg… E-Visa makes the visiting Russia so much easier now!
I’ve visited Kopparnäs many times, it’s one of my favorites places to grill sausages! This time I decided to make a visit to the area that is on the south-east side of Kopparnäs -it’s called Klobbacka.
It’s almost like an island but you can walk there throught a narrow neck of land. I actually made a shortcut by walking through the ice. The weather was very nice and on the other side of Klobbacka there was a lot of beautiful places to take pictures! The weather was getting better and better and the views also were greater all the time!
It took 3 hours to walk about 4 kilometers! The route was like this:
A girl from Finland going around the world… what is so special about this? She has a rare muscle condition called SMA and she needs a personal assistant almost in all of her daily routine. She’s been telling about her experiences many years now and now she’s about to go around the world! Check http://www.palmuasema.fi/ (also in english)
First I have to confess that this is my mistake! I didn’t read the conditions about making the change or cancelling the booking! But since I’ve been using booking.com quite many times (more than 50 bookings made!) I didn’t think this would be possible!
This guesthouse has this “special condition” about the cancellation (and possible changes). It says: “Please note, if cancelled or modified, 100 percent of the first night will be charged. Deposit: 100 percent of the first night may be charged anytime after booking.”
I made my booking in the beginning of december and then I cancelled it about 2 weeks later (and 7 months before the actual arrival time!!) So due to the regulations and this special condition I lost the whole amount of money already 7 months before I ever made any trip!!
This is not possible here in Finland! But maybe in Lithuania it is possible to cheat travellers like this! And for us motorcycle riders it is quite impossible anyway to make this in-advance bookings because you don’t know what happens tomorrow…
Here is the guesthouse: http://aismares.lt/
And here is their page in booking.com: https://www.booking.com/hotel/lt/aismares-guest-house.fi.html If you’re using booking.com to find a place to stay, please always read the notes and conditions about cancellation or making changes to your booking!
I also put very negative feedback to trip advisor and google!
The weather was getting better and better and the views also were greater all the time!
Go - Za 