Walked into the main part of the city this morning. The sun was shining and it was warm. Lovely place, very clean with wide streets, trams and not a lot of traffic really. Water and green parks everywhere. There was a big market down at the harbour side where the cruise ships come in. Some amazing food for sale, they were cooking huge pieces of salmon on one stall…need a mortgage to make any purchases though, as expected. Big beards and flat caps are very much a thing here and Guy noticed that most of the tram drivers are women. He thought it was maybe a good job for a woman as there were no directional decisions involved. He was lucky an accident didn’t befall him…oops the wife just slipped and er..😂
We set off north at lunchtime, calling at Lidl to see if we could afford the basics. We’re carrying enough food to get us through a war anyway, so should be ok. Most things are at least double the price of elsewhere!
The route soon turned into exactly how we expected Finland to be. Tall pine trees and silver birch lining the roads, and lakes everywhere. I didn’t expect to see so many wild flowers though – … I think some are wild lupins if such things exist. Haven’t seen any elk yet, although there are plenty of signs on the roads.
We’ve parked by a lake (surprise,surprise) for the night. Feels very cold compared to Helsinki, but we were amazed to see parents bringing their children here for a swim! Don’t think I could get in that water…not even for lots of money!
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Just heard a roaring overhead and a hot air balloon nearly did a crash land in the trees – luckily he managed to avoid disaster.