Helsinki Holiday

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Our first day after the overnight ferry ride was spent swimming and lounging around the pool.  Corban has learnt to hold her breath and swim down to pick up objects from the bottom of the pool, she can also now do underwater somersaults.  She is very pleased with herself. 

We moved from the pool to Lake Saaksjarvi on our second day.  This is the nicest water we have swum in this holiday.  The water comes from a natural spring and was clear and warm, we plan to come back.  Leo was exhausted from all our travels and even had a little sleep on the beach.  Taylor enjoyed jumping off the high dive boards and everyone loved cooling off in the water and building sandcastles.

This time we took the bus into the main city of Helsinki.  The city is relatively modern and not very big.  It was very easy to follow our own walking tour of the main locations.  We loved the markets down by the harbour.  There were lots of huge Artic Salmon steaks cooking, little salty fish and even reindeer meat.  Alongside this we saw lots of hand made crafts, reindeer antler and rug souvenirs.  Something slightly different that we saw today was a church carved into stone.  It was very beautiful on the inside and had a man playing beautifully on the piano. 

Day four saw a change in the weather, it was still hot but probably the longest and loudest thunder we have ever heard.  The thunder and lightning didn’t set in until the afternoon so we managed a lazy morning followed by a nature walk in the forest.  The signs indicated that we could possibly see some interesting animals like eagles, lynx (like a bobcat), otters, moose … but we didn’t see anything other than giant ant hills.  Corban and Leo also collect wild berries and mushrooms.  I learnt that wild berries and mushrooms are really strong tasting and we probably need to learn how to cook them properly rather than just taste them raw.          

Ferry From Stockholm To Helsinki

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Catching the ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki was AWESOME.  Once on board the ship we quickly put our bags in our cabin and headed up to the main decks.  It was a little pricy buying drinks (24 euro) but nice to sit out on the deck as we cruised through the archipelago.  It was amazing how the huge ships have to navigate through all of the little islands, most of which had houses, at some points we felt very close to the islands.  The sunset photos with Corban and Leo were taken at about 10pm at night.  The other sunset was just before midnight!  We have noticed that the nights are becoming slightly longer.  There was lots of entertainment on the ship with several bands playing, gaming rooms, karaoke and decks where you could just admire the view.  Taylor was a little scared of traveling by ship and figured out were the life jackets were and made an escape plan, after a couple of hours she relaxed and enjoyed the trip.  Our cabin had 4 beds, Corban and Leo were very happy to share.               

Home Exchange: Stockholm, Sweden

Our Home Exchange in Stockholm was another success.  We were situated about 20 minutes by train from Stockholm City.  The house was three levels with a huge nature reserve out the back and a play park in the front.  The back garden had raspberries, wild strawberries and red currents that Corban and Leo were happy to pick and gobble up.  The owner collected music and books, Allan decided that he had more music to listen to than hours to live, the photo is only one of the walls in the house.   

         

Skansen and Uto Island

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The sun had been blazing and we were nearing the end of our time in Sweden.  With only two days before departing for Finland we decided to visit Skansen Open-Air Museum and the Uto Island, located in the archipelago. 

To get to Skansen we caught the ferry across the harbour, a lovely trip with fantastic views of Stockholm city.  Skansen was similar to a museum we visited in Denmark, but bigger and with Scandinavian animals.  There were people dressed in traditional dress or old farming clothes and working the farm.  We liked seeing the moose and reindeer, Corban liked calling out to the reindeer with the names of Santa’s reindeer.  There were traditional violin folk songs played and also a folk dancing performance.  The folk dancing was great to watch.  When we were leaving there was also a band playing music, it was funny listening to Abba songs in Sweden.

Our final day in Sweden was a visit to Uto Island.  We read great reviews on the internet and were recommended to go there by our home exchange family.  The boat ride took about one hour through a maze of islands and was very pretty, although the yucky water surprised us.  The island was small enough to walk around and we stopped at different swimming spots.  It made us very thankful that we come from NZ, the water was quite polluted there were even little dead fish floating around.  Later Allan did some research and we found out that the Baltic Sea is actually dying.  With 85 million people living around it and the water taking 20 years to change, it is in a bit of a bad state.  Such a shame, as it is such a beautiful place.         

Swedish Folk Dancing

We enjoyed watching Swedish folk dancing at the Skansen Museum. 

Five More Days Of Our Swedish Holiday

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It has been a mixed week of sight seeing and relaxing.  We have taken a walk through a large reserve at the back of the house we are staying in and found a local swimming spot. 

We took a drive to Sigtuna, which is the oldest city in Sweden founded in 980.  Now it is a picturesque little medieval town with cute shops, small cathedral, some ruins and a small harbour area. 

From here we drove about another 20 minutes to the Skokloster Palace.  This palace was privately built, the church was donated lots of land in the area and became very wealthy, more so than the King.  No problem the King just took the land from the church, I guess back then a King could do what he liked!

Another day sightseeing in Stockholm took us to the Fjallgatan Street lookout and then a ferry ride across to Djurgarden Island where we went to the Vasa Museum.  This museum is home to the most amazing warship.  The Vasa sank in the Stockholm harbour in 1628 and was not salvaged until 333 years later in 1961.  The ship is 98% original and looks like it is something from a movie set.  The museum was built around the ship and is 6 levels high.

Allan loves IKEA and since Sweden is creator and home to the largest IKEA in the world he couldn’t keep himself away.  Corban volunteered to go with him and gladly enjoyed an icecream after the visit.  Other than this we have found more swimming spot and are enjoying the sun and water.