Rovaniemi

Yesterday was a travel day. We left Tallinn by ferry and a quick stop at the Helsinki harbour markets, we headed to Helsinki Airport for our flight north. Got to our Rovaniemi hotel by 6pm then out for dinner. The town itself seemed to have little character with a lot of buildings that are less than 50 years old. Little did we know at this stage the towns history. More soon.

On return to the hotel the outside door was locked and we didn’t have the code. There is no onsite reception. After trying for 10 minutes with another guest who had the same issue, we were lucky to have a guest exiting the door. I got his code on the door which has continued to work. Later on I found out that I had been given the code but the email sent to me was in Finnish and Google Translate didn’t do well on this code instruction. I emailed the hotel with this plus the aircon wasn’t working. Within 30 minutes a knock on the door to check the issues. This was after 10pm and I definitely didn’t expect that prompt service. Next day the aircon fixed. Top notch service here..

Our full day in town started with a visit to Arktikum Museum. We’re not always interested in museums but this one was good. It had excellent interactive displays about the Arctic area. One fact that fascinated Julie was how much of Earth’s water is frozen in Greenland. If it all melted the world’s oceans would raise by 7 metres. We also learnt a lot of history of the region. The town of Rovaniemi was occupied by the Germans in 1939 but later the Finns railed against them. As the Germans left they blew up 90% of the buildings. This explains the lack of old buildings. The Russians annexed part of the country too so the Finns were being challenged from all directions. The Finns stood up for themselves and still do.

A quick walk to grab a bus for our next tourist spot but a rainstorm hit us so a fast walk to hotel for shelter. Out to Santa’s Village which is a big thing here. Quite a big area and all geared around a winter wonderland with lots of Santa paraphernalia. As this is midsummer the attraction was quieter. We both felt sorry for the shop workers who suffer 365 days of background Christmas songs.

We took a walk along a nature trail into Santa’s forest. Mainly spruce trees and all quite small with little undergrowth. The mosquitoes fly 24/7 here. They will big and mean. So many of them. They broke through my repellant! Once back to town we stopped at an authentic Lapland restaurant where Julie had the reindeer meat. Tasted like reindeer!

Now that we are in the Arctic Circle we are seeing 24 hours of sunshine. We are 5 days past the longest day. The locals tend to start late and finish later during this time.
Tomorrow we move once again and take a fast train to Turku.Read more