Arctic Circle Tour - Kuopio to Rovaniemi, Finland

We left Kuopio after another hearty fish breakfast including my favourite - raw fish in some sort of curry mayonnaise. We would be on the road all day as it was over 600 km to our next destination just south of the Arctic Circle. Finland is 1160 km from north to south.

There were about 20 people travelling with Macleay Valley Travel on our bus. Avoid this group at all costs. The company targets

retirement villages and many of the travellers were there because they were bored at home. They were very rude and we were embarrassed that they were Australian. The other passengers were a wide mix of people who's company we enjoyed over the course of the tour.

Bus tour etiquette requires that everyone moves two seats every day to ensure all passengers get a different view and to meet new people across the aisle. The passengers in front and behind stay the same.

By Day 6 we had overheard a great deal of personal conversation from a lady behind us and truly understood why none of her friends would associate her. Unfortunately this continued for the full 20 days but we got better at blocking the conversation out.

Watching the scenery from our window – many lakes and birch,

spruce and fir trees we drove north-west for lunch at Oulu which is on the Bothian Sea – this is the sea between Finland and Sweden.

Oulu is one of Finland’s university cities, has a big tech industry but most importantly is the home of the World Air Guitar Championships. We had lunch, walked across to an island for a look around and moved on following the coast to Kemi and to our destination.

We arrived in Rovaniemi in the late afternoon and went out for a traditional Lapp dinner. We went to a place run by local indigenous people, the Sami who originate from parts of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. Reindeer herding is legally reserved only for Samis in some regions of the Nordic countries.

We had smoked reindeer and lingonberries for entrée, reindeer

casserole for the main meal and a lingonberry dessert – not a great deal of variety but the reindeer was delicious.

John asked me when the lap dancing was going to start and the Sami waitress told him to go back to his hotel room. You can’t take him anywhere.

We met Ric and Dawn on this dinner. You will hear more about this Kiwi couple - they were a really bad influence on us.

We stayed at a Scandic hotel, the Koskikatu in Rovaniemi. The supermarket was across the road so we bought some drinks from shops called Alkos which made them easy to find. Jacobs Creek was cheaper than in Australia which is interesting as alcohol is very expensive in Finland. If we felt like it we could have had a little gamble too as there were pokie machines in the shopping centre.

The following morning we toured Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland and only 8 kms south of the Arctic Circle. Originally it was famous for exporting fur and salmon. The town was destroyed in WWII and it was rebuilt in the shape of reindeer antlers so is very spread out.

We saw lots of reindeer sculptures and a church with really interesting frescoes.

We toured some of the more affluent suburbs and found that many buildings are wooden, obviously because of the overabundance of birch, spruce and fir trees. There are sauna buildings on every property. More about saunas later.

In the afternoon we took a canoe ride to a reindeer farm. It was VERY

cold on the water. We had a really great day.

The reindeers were smaller than I imagined them but their antlers gave them extra height. We were instructed not to touch the antlers as they can be quite tender. Of course, Barbara (80 something) grabbed the antlers as soon as she got near one of the poor animals.

We spent some time in a tepee-like structure with a Sami man who told us some traditional stories about how the reindeers got their antlers. He was a really entertaining speaker and quite funny.

The following day we went into the Arctic Circle and John finally got to do something he has been waiting years to do.

Fun Finnish Facts:

* Finish is from the same language group as Hungarian
* The Finnish love heavy metal music
* The Finnish invented the Baby Box which reduced infant mortality from 65 in 1000 in the 1930's to 2.5 in 1000 today. The babies sleep in the box and we were told that you can see rows of boxes outside day care centres where the babies experience a bit of real weather. Maybe something for Sandi.
* There are about 17 hours of daylight in Finland in August.

Next: Arctic Circle Tour – Rovaniemi to Saariselka, Finland