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Helsinki to Kemi: 713 kilometres

Logistics and ferry schedules have forced us to do the long drive north through Finland, over the Gulf of Bothnia, down through Sweden and back to Denmark and Germany. We have allowed ourselves three to four days to accomplish this and even that is being optimistic, driving eight hours or so a day. We head north from Helsinki in the by-now standard grey, flat-bottomed and low hanging clouds with the occasional burst of bright sunshine teamed with torrents of hard rain. Yesterday’s International Herald Tribune, the 1st English language paper we’ve seen since Amsterdam informs us that this start to summer has been the coldest on record in the Nordic countries since 1928.

We drive through the Lake District and indeed it is – every kilometre or so we traverse clear lakes with the occasional Finnish cottage on them. Occasionally we see a brave child swimming or jumping off a dock, a warm towel or fleece not too far away. Much of the landscape is like a beautiful Finnish post card and we pass camper van after camper van on vacation. We continue past stretches of pine and birch forest and for much of the drive the beautiful monotony of the landscape doesn’t alter much. The dazzling purple, pink and white wild lupines are in their blooming glory, poking out of the ditches and culverts along the road. Sometimes all you can see is washes of purple, indicating the side of the road. As we head further north, the lilacs are just coming into their brilliance.

I have never been this far north before and our destination for the evening is Kemi, a small town right on the Finnish/Swedish border, at the very top of the Gulf of Bothnia, and about 100 kilometres south of the Artic Circle. The farthest north any Georges have been, (to my knowledge) is when our father Eddie worked a stint in Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island for the Asbestos Company in the early 1970s. He would always send us back stories of the midnight sun and indeed it doesn’t get dark here at all. We are roughly parallel with the most northern tip of Iceland or the southern edge of Great Bear Lake.

We arrive about 8 pm in Kemi and settle into our hotel. It seems that there is a wedding here this weekend as groups of guests are checking in and hugging and laughing with each other in that awkward yet familiar way that family and friends have when they see each other once every couple of years, either at a wedding or a funeral. The Finnish pastime of public drunkenness is evident as we watch tremendously drunken people negotiate the avenue outside our hotel. Well, it is Friday night after all. There seems to be lots of green space and grass for them to tumble upon and have a short nap. John and I grab a bottle of duty free red wine and decide to join them, not on the grass but in the confines of our hotel room (although they all look like they’ve had way more than ½ bottle of wine each).

Kouvola to Helsinki: 137 kilometres

The drive from Kouvola to Helsinki is an easy one – the only stop we make is to take photos of one of the brilliant yellow mustard fields.



We get back to our hotel, checked in, and spend the afternoon doing chores – I do laundry, Greg works on the journal and heads to an internet café to post. The posting can be done, but for some reason, our email will not work. We have not been able to send or receive email since we were in Stockholm, 1 ½ weeks ago. I join Greg at the internet café, and with the manager we try to figure out the problem, without success.

We head to a nearby bar – there is ½ hour left in happy hour, an important fact in a country where a pint of beer costs over $10 at normal prices. We start talking to a group of guys, and somehow it is now 9 p.m. and we are in a cab headed to another bar, where we join up with a group already there. The night wears on – people keep telling us that we can’t afford the beer and buying us rounds, refusing to let us return the favour. The only thing that saves us is the realization at about 11 p.m. that if we don’t catch the last streetcar, in about 20 minutes, we are in for either a long walk home to our hotel in the suburbs, or an expensive taxi ride. We say our goodbyes, start walking then run and make it onto the streetcar with no time to spare.

It is our last day in St. Petersburg, and it is beautiful. Our train is not until 4:30 and we have officially finished with our guide Nico so we pack and organize ourselves, check out of the hotel and grab the number 22 bus to St. Isaac’s Cathedral for a day of last minute sight seeing. On our first visit to St. Isaacs we didn’t have the opportunity to spend any real time inside the church-turned-museum, so today we head back for a second look. It is known as one of the most beautiful churches in Europe and it truly is. Ornate gilded angels support the huge dome, beautiful Russian malachite columns flank the altar and ornate chandeliers cast a gentle glow that augments the natural day light that illuminates the enormous space. Unlike the wet day yesterday, the sun streams through the huge window in the dome, a hundred meters above our heads, adding more reflected light to the space and the beautiful mosaics icons on display.



Inside St. Isaac's Cathedral

We wander the area a bit and plan to be at the Yusupov Palace for its opening at 12 pm. The Yusupov, like many of the palaces of St. Petersburg, is an intimate family home and the Yusupov family was rewarded with this splendid palace for their years of loyalty as advisors to the Tsars. It is also known, more sensationally, as the palace where Rasputin was murdered. We choose the guided audio tour and pass through many beautiful but liveable rooms including living, dining, music and ball rooms, and libraries. The crowning stop on the tour is a beautiful 150 seat theatre built for the family for informal music presentations and other entertainments. It is still used today for chamber music concerts.


Inside the Yusupov Palace


The theatre

We have lunch close to the palace and walk the canals back to our hotel, a quick 15 minute walk. Our taxi is waiting for us and we head across town, in mid-afternoon Russian traffic, to our waiting train.

St. Petersburg has been a beautiful and wonderful, eye-opening experience for me. It is a constant feast for the eyes, much like Florence or Venice is, but with a unique, golden sumptuousness to it. I quickly got over my pre-conceived fears of what Russia was about – a threatening, dark place of unemployment and voice-less hordes, put down by their government. While we did see some questionable sorts, they where no more or no less then we have encountered in Sydney, Bangkok, New Delhi or Toronto. The light was constant and ever changing while we were here and that is largely due to “White Nights” and the never ending glowing light of the night/day. It is part of what makes St. Petersburg so magical.

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Helsinki to Kouvola: 148 kilometres

Helsinki is draped in low-lying, grey clouds this morning and a cool, continuous rain is falling as we head downstairs for breakfast at 9:00. There is chaos in the breakfast room as clearly every hotel guest, their sleepy children in tow, are arriving for breakfast at the same time. The room clearly cannot handle the rush. We wait patiently for a table for two. Some oatmeal and cereal later, Greg heads downtown to the internet café to update the site and I have a leisurely morning, reading and exercising.

We are driving to Kouvola today to catch the train to St. Petersburg tomorrow. The plan had been to make an adventure of it, stopping in the pretty little towns and villages that dot the route. However, it pours all the way. We travel through tall pine and birch forests; they trap the rainy mist on the forest floor. It is very familiar Canadian landscape to us, but the barns and houses tell us that this is not home. Bright red, mustard yellow, pale green, and cream coloured wet clapboard greet us over the green, rolling hills. Greg points out that the Finns have beautiful yet practical barns!

We do stop in one place, Porvoo, where the old wooden homes are well preserved and the streets still look like traditional Finnish towns. From the licences on the cars, we deduce that the tourists Porvoo is crowded with are Finnish, enjoying their summer vacations, shopping for souvenirs in the quaint shops - despite the wet, fall-like weather. We have a light lunch in a small café: vegetable soup, a salad and some bread all served up by some lovely local women.

We drive the rest of the way to Kouvola, another 95 kilometres. Our hotel is right across the street from the train station, and they are happy to have us leave our car in the parking lot while we are away, as we will be staying here when we return.

On the drive, we discuss contingency plans – our original intention had been that after we return to Finland from Russia we would drive north, above the Arctic Circle, cross back through Sweden to Norway, and take a ferry down the coast of Norway to see the fjords. We agree, however, that if it is still raining when we come back, we will probably skip all of that, as there will be nothing to see but fog; instead, we will take a ferry from Helsinki to Germany, cutting short our Nordic adventure, but perhaps finding some decent weather a bit further south.

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Turku to Helsinki: 193 kilometres

I am so happy to be in Finland again! I travelled here 4 years ago with my mother, and we visited southern Finland before we went on to St. Petersburg. I was impressed with Finland – beautiful, clean, birch and pine covered land with outcroppings of granite – just like northern Ontario but with fewer people.

We are in Turku, the capital of Finland when it was a Swedish province (from the late 1200s until the early 1800s). We head for Turku Castle, beautifully restored, and spend some time wandering around there. Unfortunately, the weather is not co-operating, and we decide to head for Helsinki rather than exploring further into Turku.


Turku Castle

Mid-way to Helsinki the day changes – the sun comes out and it warms up. We decide to leave the main road and go the rest of the way on quiet country roads, hoping that we will see a quaint restaurant where we can stop for lunch. The drive is beautiful, but we pass through few settlements, and see no restaurants, quaint or otherwise. Wild lupins, purple and pink, are in full bloom interspersed with delicate white Queen Anne’s lace. We occasionally drive by huge fields of mustard seed, vast seas of yellow edged by brilliant green fields. The lilacs are at their peak. We see many rose bushes that I grew up calling Russian roses, pink with 5 petals and reddish leafs – my parents have a couple of these in their yard; they too are in full bloom.

We find our hotel easily – it is a bit outside the downtown core, but right on a tram line, so a 10-minute ride into the heart of town. We head downtown, and I show Greg around – I am surprised at how much I remember of the layout of town. To me, this is the nicest of the 3 Nordic capitals I’ve been to – it has the old beauty of Stockholm or Köpenhavn, but is also resolutely modern, full of beautiful buildings built by those amazing mid-20th century Finnish architects.

On its way into town, the tram passes the site of the 1952 Olympics, still used as an athletic facility. Some of the facilities are quite beautiful, but all of them are so tiny by today’s standards that it is virtually impossible to think that all of the athletes at today’s games could fit into the stadium, let alone any spectators or TV cameras.

When the Russians took control of Finland in the early 1800s, they moved the capital of what they called the Grand Duchy of Finland to Helsinki, and changed Helsinki’s fate. A beautiful city sprang up, and much of what we see today is still original from this period. In particular, Senate Square is a beautiful area created soon after Helsinki became the Russian colony’s capital – dominated by the Cathedral, with government buildings on one side and the university and library on the other.


From left: Helsinki Cathedral behind Senate Square; Senate Square; Helsinki skyline

After a few hours exploring town, we head back to the hotel for naps. A couple of hours later, we head downtown again for dinner (Thai – Helsinki is full of ethnic restaurants of all kinds) and some internet time.

We head for home about 10:30 p.m., and the sun is still way up in the sky. We still aren’t used to the light – it doesn’t feel right, somehow, to eat when the sun feels like it is at midafternoon height; and it doesn’t feel right to go to bed in full sunlight, even though it is bedtime. And we have both been wakened by the sun, even through drawn blinds, at 3:30 a.m. or so, as it makes its appearance for the new day.

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Happy Birthday to Jane Weissman and Lou Bailey (Happy 90!), both on June 30!

The alarm goes early – 5:30. For a change, it wakes me. The coffee is ready-to-go, and although I am not interested in food, I have my cereal with yogurt and a banana. At 6:00, I make sure Greg is awake, and by 6:30 we have packed the car and are driving away from our apartment.

Right on schedule, at 7:00, we pull into the line-up to check in for the ferry to Finland. The ferries that ply the Baltic are not like ferries we have in North America – they are luxury cruise ships. Their primary purpose seems to be to provide a weekend getaway with a day in Stockholm or Helsinki or Tallin, and amazing duty-free shopping. Silja Lines proudly tells you that they are the 2nd largest duty-free vendor in the world, after London’s Heathrow Airport.

The day is foggy, and we sense the islands in Stockholm’s archipelago more than we see them. We quickly get the feel of the ship, and we retire to our cabin, pull open the berths and spend the morning napping. When I open my eyes, the fog has burnt off and the scenery is beautiful – we are passing through the islands, heavily covered with trees; it could be the 1,000 Islands in the St. Lawrence. We go up on the Sun Deck (today, for once, this is not wishful thinking), stand and watch until we pass out of the archipelago into the open water of the Gulf of Bothnia, when it fogs over again.


From the Silja Europa

After lunch, we dock in Mariehamn, a Finnish island in the Gulf. As soon as we pull into the open water, the fog envelops us again. We retire to the cabin again and nap the afternoon away. The trip remains foggy until we reach the islands close to the Finnish mainland – the fog clears, the sun is shining, and the sense of being in the north is overwhelming – from the quality of the light, from the smell of the pine trees, from the water everywhere.

11+ hours after we departed, we arrive in Turku. There is chaos getting all of the cars and trucks out of the terminal, but everybody is graceful despite the length of the trip. We check into our hotel, then make our way into town to find a bite to eat. By now it is almost 10 p.m., and although the light has only started to fade towards dusk, the restaurants are a different story. Back at our hotel, we are able to get a bite to eat, and when we turn off our lights at midnight, it is still quite light outside.

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