If you read last week’s post about how sick we got in Svalbard, then our approach to Finland won’t surprise you. Without any hesitation we canceled all but one of the tours we had booked in both Lapland and in Helsinki. And instead, we took our time, rested as much as we needed, and spent our visit quietly finding Finland. Sometime travel is busy and full and sometimes you take it slow.

The Crud

Well I’ll say it again, we have generally been so very lucky with our health on all our travels around the world. It’s been rare when we have had to deal with illness. Yes there was the dog bite. Oh and let’s not forget the car accident. And here and there a tummy disorder, a toothache and bad cold. But this crud that took hold of first me, and then Arne has been serious. Even two weeks on I am still coughing and dealing with other unpleasant side effects. And so it was that we approached our ten days in Finland at a low-key pace.

Rovaniemi

We canceled a walking tour, a cooking class and a sauna experience in Rovaniemi. Instead we visited Santa Claus Village, went to two museums and did a lovely walk along the river one day, and a more extensive hike and bird watching trek on another day. All of that filled our days enough, as we both worked to overcome our illness in a quiet and focused way.

To be honest, I was expecting Rovaniemi to be more charming. Perhaps in a couple of months when the snow is on the ground it will feel like I imagined. But honestly it is a pretty non-descript small city with a population of 70,000. Rovaniemi was occupied by the Nazis in WWII, and when they retreated they burnt the entire city to the ground. Today’s Rovaniemi is made of buildings that are boxy and built in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Santa Claus Village

Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi, Finland, began with a single wooden cabin built in 1950 for a visit by U.S. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.  Mrs. Roosevelt was vising to see the post war reconstruction. This cabin served as the only dedicated Arctic Circle marker and tourist building in the area for nearly three decades. 

The New Santa Claus Village 1985

• Village Establishment: Santa Claus Village officially opened just outside Rovaniemi on the Arctic Circle in 1985 to give visitors a permanent physical address to meet Santa.
• Santa Claus Office: Santa’s main office opened its doors to the public in 1992, quickly becoming a year-round international attraction. 
• Global Growth: Visitor numbers surged around the turn of the millennium, turning the destination into a massive hub for holiday tourism, accommodations, and official Arctic postal services. 

We enjoyed our brief visit and our rather lengthy conversation with Santa Claus himself. Despite a line of people waiting to see the Jolly Elf he took his time asking about our heritage and background, how we liked Finland and generally chatting with us in a very friendly way. I do believe he is the real Santa Claus.

While at Santa Claus village we also enjoyed probably our best meal of our time in Finland – a spectacular brunch feast of dozens of local Finnish and Lappish favorites from fish to reindeer. It was amazing.

Quietly Finding Birds

As we always try to do, we headed out for an easy and pretty flat hike through the local forests and marshes to look for local birds. I was still coughing a lot, but we took our time and were blessed with beautiful scenery, four new to us birds and wild reindeer too.

Overnight Train to Helsinki

Known as the Santa Express, a popular way to get between Lapland in the north and Helsinki in the south is to take the train. The train runs several times a day but we chose to do the overnight train. We had never done a sleeper car on a train before, and well it’s not like in the movies. Our teeny little berth had bunk beds, a tiny sink and a small window all in about 5 feet by 7 feet. The toilet and shower was down the hall.

We had already had dinner when we boarded, so we just settled in to the itsy bitsy room and got comfy for the 12 hours ride. I slept surprisingly well, waking up when the train made stops but falling easily back to sleep.

Hello Helsinki

Oops. We got off the train at the wrong Helsinki station, and had to take an Uber on in to the city center where we had booked a small hotel room for four nights. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed a walk around the botanical gardens while waiting to check into our hotel. In the evening we met up with a woman I have only known through Instagram. She lives in Helsinki and was enthusiastic about showing us her city and we also went out for Nordic Sushi. A perfect introduction to Helsinki. She gave us so many great tips. It’s always fun to meet Instagram friends for the first time.

Day Two

Historic Walking Tour

Despite waking up to rain we took ourselves on a self guided walking tour of the city. Helsinki is home to about 700,000 people, has a great transportation system, and is easy to make your way around. It also has fantastic architecture, fascinating history (founded in 1550) and is sparkling clean. Highlights on our tour included the incredible Temppeliaukio church carved into a rock cliff, the beautiful Helsinki Cathedral and the Old Market Hall building where we had an amazing lunch.

Day Three

Seurasaari Island

Seurasaari is a small island just outside of Helsinki known mostly as the location of the Seurasaari Open-Air Museum The Open Air Museum consists of old, mainly wooden buildings transplanted from elsewhere in Finland and placed in the dense forest landscape of the island.

The island is so peaceful and beautiful and we spent several hours wandering the trails. On a weekday there were very few people and it felt so good to be outside forest bathing and breathing the fresh clean air. The weather was much better than the day before, and we enjoyed a dry and beautiful hike. I highly recommend Seurasaari when you visit Helsinki.

Loyly Sauna

Sauna is such a big part of the local Finnish culture, but even after two weeks I still did not feel up to the sauna experience of hot sauna followed by cold plunge. But the Loyly Sauna is rated one of the best in the world, so we thought we at least needed to go see what it is all about. We were too late to get a dinner reservation, but lunch is drop-in so we arrived and found the restaurant mostly empty. The large windows looking out over the Baltic Sea created a beautiful atmosphere for a warm Finnish lunch.

After our lunch we walked around and observed those folks taking a sauna and then a plunge. They seemed to be enjoying this very Finnish pasttime.

Our Final Day

We spent four days in Helsinki, and you really could do the city in two. But we had the time and were able to spend it quietly finding Finland without any rush or stress. So on our final day, we did a tour – the only tour of our entire ten days in Finland.

Nuuksio National Park

Nuuksio National Park is one of Finland’s 40 national parks. Established in 1994, the park spreads over an area of forests and lakes in Espoo, Kirkkonummi and Vihti. North-west from Helsinki, it is the second-closest national park to the capital behind the recently established Sipoonkorpi National Park.

We booked a guided hiking day through Viator including lunch. Our day began at 9am and we traveled by van an hour to the park. Unfortunately the weather was awful, but we had an enthusiastic guide and we had a fun day despite the rain. We got pretty soaked, had a delicious lunch cooked over an open fire and learned a lot about how the Finn’s laugh at the rain. It was a great final day in Finland.

Quietly Finding Finland

Even as I wrap up this blog post I still am coughing and blowing my nose after two weeks. We head next on the ferry across the Baltic to Estonia, Lativia and Lithuania. I hope to be on the mend and able to fully enjoy those destinations. So our time quietly finding Finland was the right choice for us. And Finland allowed us to recover, and enjoy this beautiful place at our pace.

Thank you for reading my post Quietly Finding Finland. See last week’s post Our Visit to Svalbard Not As Expected. More coming of our 103 Days of Travel. Follow us on Instagram for daily posts and more.

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