This one begs for an explanation... no one normally decides to just go to Finland from the states...in the dead of winter-hahaha. So how did this come about?
I receive Pomelo Travel deals in my email, regularly. Since the world was coming out of Covid, Europe was enticing Americans with amazing airfare deals. As we sat there in our living room, on a hot humid evening in September, thinking, WHERE in Europe have we not been but want to visit, Finland came to mind, more specifically Lapland. I mean, who doesn’t want to say that they have been to Lapland, the actual, real place where Santa Claus lives!??! So after checking Alex’s school calendar we decided to book a trip for us to explore this Nordic country, and a major reason was that tickets were $289 Roundtrip each person. I mean, I can’t fly to Florida sometimes for this price! So yeah, we totally did it! I forgot that a trip like this would require us a few months of preparation buying warmer clothes, layers and coats:)). I read a ton of blogs and went through dozens of lists of items to bring to Lapland. We did have to order a bunch of stuff like wool layers, socks, snow trousers that are less puffy than snow pants, and gloves. But all that was worth it!
We flew to Miami and from Miami directly to Helsinki. I would like you to create a mental picture in your mind-- the four of us, dressed in our warmest coats and boots, waiting for our plane in Miami airport--hahaha.
We still had to wear masks on the plane, which was uncomfortable, of course (Alex prefers this improper mask wearing;)... and I am sure I am actually smiling behind that mask:)).
Five thousand miles later on not a completely full flight, we were landing in Helsinki. We had four carry ons and had to pay for the extra suitcase. No way around it, winter clothes just take up so much room.
Our plane as we arrived. This is around 3 pm in the afternoon, but it already looks dusky.
It’s a bit of a joke, but we watched Moomin cartoons right before our trip to get us more familiar with the Finnish pop culture.
It was super easy to get a train from the airport to the central part of Helsinki. Everything was nice and neat and clear.
We had to walk about a mile to our hotel from the train station. We were actually quite tired but it was only around 5 pm. It started snowing a bit too as we were walking, so we got all sweaty from pulling our suitcases through the snow. You can’t see it on the picture, but the streets were pretty snowy after a recent snow fall.
We were staying at the Radisson Blue Aleksanteri Hotel. We had a great a experience at a Radisson Blue once in Bergen, Norway, so we figured this would be great. And it was! We had two separate rooms so we could get good sleep, although we stayed only one night.
The big shock, when we checked in at the hotel, was that the front desk guy told us that pretty much all sit down places to eat shut down at 6 pm (it was almost 6 when we got there). So we had to go search for food and grab some take out noodles and then bring them to the hotel.
It was quite cold out on the streets but nice and warm at the hotel. They even gave us space heaters, just in case, as the hotel had radiators and not central air, situated in an old architectural building.
Before I go any further, here are some stats for Finland. Population--5.5 million people, unemployment rate 6.6%, the land area is approximately 84% of California, making it the 6th largest country in Europe. It’s one of the most sparsely population countries in the world with most people living in urban areas. Finland has an excellent educational system and healthcare, all funded by the government. And it cares a lot about the environment and sustainability as we saw all throughout our travels.
So....
In the morning, we enjoyed an ENORMOUS free breakfast at the hotel. And I do mean enormous--so many varieties of foods, so many good healthy choices! Everything fresh and presented like it’s a fancy restaurant. We put our luggage in storage at the hotel and headed out to see the city while it was light.
We then walked and walked and enjoyed the vibe of this relatively quiet city.
Our walk took us through the main park of Esplanadi, as Google Maps says “narrow park for picnics in summer”.
We all were excited to see so much snow!
It actually didn’t feel super freezing as we had good coats and boots on. This is the Senate Square.
The statue is a monument to Alexander II, the Russian emperor who ruled Russia while Finland was part of Russia (it was under Russian rule from 1809 till 1917). Although this emperor was supporting Finland’s autonomy, many wonder, why they still have this monument in the center of their city.
We decided to warm up a bit and explored the Helsinki City Museum across the street. It was nice and cozy and very educational about the life of the city.
Their exhibit about their special relationship with Estonia and a ferry to Talinn was pretty cool.
And some things never change, even in Finland.
In the afternoon, we walked towards the Gulf of Finland that surrounds Helsinki. This is Uspenski Cathedral in the background--with clear ties to Russian culture. It’s an Eastern Orthodox cathedral, built in the 1860s.
The boys decided to take the Skywheel to see the city from above.
Winter in the city.
And so much water all around it.
Here is a great picture in the early afternoon as the sun was starting to disappear. We had to catch any daylight hours we could get!
Amazing last rays of the sun for the day.
We grabbed some food at the fresh food market, that probably is packed during normal tourist season.
And then we started wondering around the city, to kill some time before dinner. I heard about a famous sledding hill in Kaivopuisto, in the area with all the embassies, so we headed towards that direction.
I must mention here, Finnish is an extremely difficult language. It is not similar to any other European language really, although belongs to the Finn-Hungarian group which, they say, originated in the Ural mountains.
So we took this quite longish walk and found the hill. As we were approaching the hill we were wondering, how in the world would we actually sled if we don’t have any sleds.... Then Robert had a brilliant idea--to check the dumpster! He shared a few stories of how he would find sleds in the trash by sledding hill when he was little...and so we decided to give it a go.
And guess what! It was hilarious, but we found two sleds right in the top part of the dumpster! We laughed so hard!
This hill was EXCELLENT! Super fast and long.
Beautiful sunset at around 3 pm.
That’s the sled that made all the difference:), the other one we found was a bit more broken.
A few other kids were playing on the hill, you could tell they were very used to this type of winter entertainment.
After some fun sledding, we walked a bit further to Huvilakatu (Katu means street we figured).
And then made our way towards the hotel by stopping to play more along the way.
This was our pick up dinner from a place called Momo Punavuori--Nepalese Dumplings!
It was a tiny hole in the wall type of place, so we brought our food to the hotel again and ate in our cozy lobby. We had some time to kill before our main adventure for the day.
We were heading to LAPLAND! That’s right! Our train was leaving at 11 pm from the main station so we took a nice long walk with our suitcases again-hahaha.
Lapland’s “capital” is Rovaniemi, so that’s where we were heading at 23:13. This train is called Santa Claus Express Night Train and it takes 12 hours to reach Rovaniemi.
We had two compartments for the four of us (perks of having just two kids to travel with:)). Mark and I had one with our own bathroom and Robert and Alex had one with a bathroom down the hall. We weren’t sure what to expect at all, so it all was a learning experience. The compartments were pretty narrow and getting our suitcases was a bit tricky, but we were prepared for that, and used every inch effectively. The beds were of decent size and long enough even for our tall people.
This is the picture of our personal bathroom. That wall behind the mirror converted into the shower, but we didn’t use it to avoid making a wet mess (plus it was almost midnight).
And thus we were off to Lapland!
To Be Continued...
Lyana.
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