Arctic Circle Tour - Helsinki to Kuopio, Finland

We spent the morning checking out Helsinki and after lunch we hopped on the bus and headed north to Kuopio.

The road to Kuopio was flat and the scenery was pristine and “consistent” – lakes and trees, so not many photos. There are approximately 180,000 lakes in Finland and Kuopio is in the Lake District. The three dominant species of trees are birch, fir and spruce;

the birch being used quite creatively during the national past-time “sauna.” Why not use a branch of a tree to whip yourself?

It was quite a long trip of around 400 kms so it was time to have dinner soon after arrival at the hotel, the Original Sokos Hotel Puijonsarvi. The hotel was quite comfortable and the food was good including the fish.

We made an embarrassing error on arrival. Europeans write the number 1 with a big upswing and it sort of looks like a number 7 (although they put a slash through the 7). What’s the big problem? A wrong floor level is soon sorted. Not in this instance – rooms starting with 1 were down two floors, across a long tunnel, up another elevator and down two long corridors. The key didn’t work. John did the round trip to reception twice before they asked him why he was pressing the down button. What’s worse is that we know how 1 is written so shouldn’t have been fooled. We weren’t alone so didn’t feel so bad and we were really orientated to the location of the restaurant.

Kuopio was just a stopover and we didn’t see much as we departed the next morning. The population is over 117,000 but as the city is very spread out it doesn’t look that large. It is situated over a lake. I don’t think waterfront properties would be that expensive in Finland.

What is interesting about Kuopio is the street network. Originally designed to create a fire barrier (all that birch, fir and spruce) but now every second street is reserved for pedestrian and cycle traffic to provide pedestrians a calm environment away from traffic.

Fun Finnish Facts:
* Typical saying include: I’m hungry like and Estonian wolf and they
use a knowledge machine not a computer
* Children wait for a Christmas goat not Santa
* Finland is called Suomi by the Finnish
* Finland is Nordic not Scandinavian

Next: Arctic Circle Tour – Kupio to Rovaniemi, Finland