Pining for the Fjords!

Northern Norway is breathtakingly beautiful and worth pining over! For days we drove from fjord to fjord, each one somehow more awesome than the last. Our photos just don't do any of it justice.

Lapland

We headed north in Finland via Oulu and finally across the Arctic Circle at the Santa Village,a tacky Christmas themed tourist trap, where we got to meet Father Christmas and send early Christmas cards.The further north we travelled the more wind swept and beautifully rugged the landscape became. We crossed into Norway and headed all the way up to Nordkapp, the most northerly point in Europe. We saw herds of reindeer,many birds and some elk and fox.

St. Petersburg

We were lucky to find a visa free trip to St Petersburg from Lappeenranta in Finland. The journey was a rather long ferry and bus trip but well worth it. It was our first trip ever to Russia and very interesting. In central St.Petersburg and especially around the touristy areas, things look very European and signs of the Soviet era are minimal.Our hotel was in Vasilevsky, directly across the river from central St. Petersburg, but in an interesting, more residential neighbourhood that allowed us to go to more local restaurants and shops. Merchandising in shops is rather backward and local supermarkets make the Frankfort Spar (in the town near our farm ) look posh.Sometimes from the street you can hardly make out it is a shop. The older fancy shopping arcades on Nevsky are glitzy in a 50s sort of way, but the stores look like you would need an appointment just to enter. There are newer western style chain stores and high end designer shops too. We did a great canal trip but St. Petersburg is best discovered on foot. The Russian Orthodox churches are amazingly decorative and of course, the Hermitage was a highlight. It is an extensive and magnificent art collection housed in the Winter Palace,whose rooms would be amazing to tour, even if there was no art on the walls.

Southern Finland

We crossed from Stockholm to Turku, Finland on a car ferry. It was much bigger than expected, taking well over 100 cars, trucks and campers. Although the trip was 10 hours long, we never really made it into open sea; there is a huge archipeligo stretching right across the Baltic Sea at that point. The scenery was stunning, so we found a restaurant table right at the front of the ship, with a 180 degree view and stayed all day. We did a 12 day trip of southern Finland , taking in many lakes and lakeside towns, as well as the southern coast on the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Finland, whilst waiting for our visa free trip to Russia to depart. During July most Finns are on holiday at lakeside cottages, but things do quieten down in August. The Finns love to Sauna and all campsites have saunas. They were far hotter than any sauna we have ever been into in SA. All campsites have putt-putt too, which seemed very popular and of course, you could play until about 11pm, because the sun was still setting very late.
Finnish cuisine is much like elsewhere in Scandinavia. Favourites include salmon, herring and meatballs with gravy and loganberry sauce. In Karelia province, we found the "Vety". This is a vetkoek with mince and rice cooked into the centre.To serve, it is cut open and filled with ham, sliced boiled egg and sweet gherkin pickle.
Helsinki is a great little city with a good vibe. The Finns are very friendly and we had a few fun nights at live music pubs. An observation - we saw more bad beards in Finland, than anywhere else in the world, ever. Is it the Viking roots? Hagar the Horrible looks neat in comparison. Long, scraggly goatees are not a good look and at least half of them are plaited or in a ponytail!!