Sylvia's Journal

It was only a week ago that we arrived in Finland. It seems eons ago. We have explored Turku, did the archipelago trail, ate salmon, peas, baby potatoes and strawberries every day, and drank liters of coffee. tried out the local gin from Nagu island as we sat on the balcony of our home, on a warm night with our We enjoyed gin tonics, overlooking a large field of some very green grain (barley? Rye?). We also learned a few Finnish words thanks to Google’s translation app that you can even point at the inscrutable long words on a label or sign post (like to find out if we can park legally).

We learned a bit about the Baltic Sea trade centuries ago and watched the Fins, of any age, enjoy their very short summer. We encountered only a few bugs (and all those in one single place), experienced a heat wave (Lapland’s temperatures were 20 degrees (F) above the usual 66 degrees at this time of the year) and we had nonstop blue skies and temperatures in the upper 70s/lower 80s. Warmer and bug freer than we had expected.

We had some idea that we would be doing a walking tour of the city but it was hot and Axel’s back is hurting, and we spent an hour at a hypermarket to find replacements for the Nespresso coffee we used up (and then of course had a cup of coffee). By the time we were done it was lunch time and we found the perfect place overlooking the river Aura and watching the Sunday boat traffic go by while munching on fried baby potatoes, and a particular kind of Finnish rye bread that accompanied our trout salad and steak tartare. By the time we were done with that the afternoon was halfway done – how time flies when you are having a good time. We strolled down river, watched a street hockey tournament in a blow-up arena, had licorice ice cream and decided it was too hot for the city and headed for a beach where we watched more Fins enjoy the cool waters in between the Gulf of Bothnia and the Baltic Sea.

Back home we had yet another salmon and potato meal. On Monday we visited Fiskars (yes, of the iconic orange shears). We had coffee (of course) at a lovely place by the small brook that transects the town and learned that the owner is from North Carolina, lived in Saint Petersburg, somewhere along the way met his French wife and, when the pandemic started, escaped the city and settled in Fiskars. We had intended to visit the museum that showed the origins of the orange shears (ploughs), but we got sidetracked by a wonderful set of art exhibits that included the results of a competition to make a small house no bigger than 30 square meters (some were even smaller). It said you could spend the night in one of them but we didn’t bother to find out how that worked.

We had another fabulous lunch, visited the shops with their very Scandinavian designs, resisted the urge the buy stuff, and then drove through endless deep woods over backroads to Hanko. This is the place from where many Finns emigrated to the US. Hanko, like all of Finland, has a very twisted history when it comes to its relationships with Sweden and Russia. Apparently the Crimean war played a role but we could not figure out how. The place is known for its large villas that were built by wealthy Russian industrialists, not quite as massive as the cottages in Newport but grandiose Victorian wooden buildings nevertheless. At some point the Fins were driven out of the place and a garrison with 30,000 Russian troops moved in and left the town in shambles after they, in their turn, left.

The drive home was long, two hours, and we realized we should have arranged lodgings in one of these towns before going to Helsinki on Friday (a 200 km ride). Once again we found the roads empty and we could drive at the maximum speed all the time. We had been warned by our hosts that there are cameras everywhere that catch you when you go over the speed limit. Conveniently, big signs with a picture of a camera warn you (and Waze also tells you where they are). We stick to the allowable speed limits religiously (more so than we do at home). Driving west and northwest we had to deal with a very bright sun blinding us all the way home at the late hour of 10:30PM.