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!!