I truly love that on this epic trip to Finland we got to do so many new things. I am especially grateful for these experiences because I know how much you have to get out of your comfort zone to even plan them all! That is what stops a lot of us (including me a bit lately) from booking a completely unfamiliar type of trip. It's definitely not always easy.
So back to Finland... Here are Mark and Robert at breakfast time, so around 9 am in the dining car on the train. As you can see, it's still dusky outside, and it kind of was like that till 11 almost.
Pretty sure Alex ordered a burger for breakfast. Most likely because I wasn't around.
And so we arrived! 11 am and we are in LAPLAND!
Santa Express! The real one!
The train station where we arrived was pretty small. They had two people waiting to give out rental car keys and that's basically it. We got our car but had to first clear off the snow.
Although this picture was taken in the dark (this was on the way back), but this is the place on the side of the train station where it says, "Take one, Leave one" and a bunch of sleds next to it. So we took a couple of sleds for a few days and boy did they come in handy!
Robert put his Montana driving skills to the test and managed to keep us all safe all the days in Finland! That doesn't mean that no mishaps story...but that's another story. In fact, I really should ask him to be a "guest writer" for that one...
So in Rovaniemi, you can go to a couple of places that are called something like Santa Claus Village and I chose the one that has the most amount of cool things free. The whole Village is right around the Arctic Circle mark! I mean it's Santa's home!!!!
Following our international tradition we saw the missionaries who parked their car next to us. Can you tell which one of them has been here a while and which one is a newbie?? The one without a hat is apparently so adjusted to the subzero temperatures!
Lots of fun photo opportunities!
As you can see on the thermometer, it is not THAT cold but it definitely felt colder to our warm North Carolinian bloods.
And we practically just walked all the way to see SANTA without any wait because we were visiting in the middle of January and not during the peak time. And did you know Santa always lives there!? As in you can visit him any day of the year, because obviously, this is his real home and he hangs out there!
For Covid protection purposes they had me and Robert sit up on that bench, and they had a large plexiglass right between that desk and Santa, but you cannot easily notice it.
Do you see what I see? LVIV! Someone from Lviv visited Santa Village as well:). It warmed my heart because Ukraine at that time was on high alert because of the crazy neighboring state.
And thus we left Santa's Village and continued our journey through Lapland towards Luosto. It was about an hour and a half hour drive through this beautiful scenery. Around 2 pm it started to feel like the sun was setting and we were left with a few beautiful rays to enjoy.
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