The cathedral really does stand out, it dates to the late 13th century and, at a height of 118.7 metres (389 ft), it is the tallest church in the Nordic countries.Uppsala castle, first built in 1549. Our hotel, the Grand Hornan, built 1907. It certainly looks grand. Breakfast was included which I’m very happy about. Great place to stay, quite central, nice staff, small but comfortable room with quite a view. From the plaque attached to this house and translated by Google: “SHOOT TEANUM
MEDIEVAL HOUSE, DURING CATHOLIC TIMES RESIDENCE OF AN ECCLESIASTICAL DIGNITY, WHO COULD WALK FROM THE CATHEDRAL TO HIS HOUSE THROUGH A PORTAL IN THE CEMETERY WALL: THE NICHES ARE PRESERVED IN THE GABLE TO THE CHURCH IN 1622 THE HOUSE WAS PURCHASED BY JOHAN SKYTREE AND OFFICIAL RESIDENCE WAS DONATED TO THE OWNER OF SKYTTE INSTITUTED THE SKYTTEAN PROFESSOR OF PEOPLE AND POLITICAL SCIENCE, THIS FUNCTION HAS ALWAYS HAD THE HOUSE AND IS ALSO A POLITICAL SCIENCE INSTITUTION: IN 1709, SKYTTEANUM UNDERGOED A THOROUGH RESTORATION UNDER PROFESSOR SKYTTEANUS JOHAN UPMARK AND GOT ITS PRESENT, HIGH BAROQUE CHARACTER.”The river is very pleasant for walking about the place purposes.The anatomical theatre at Gustavianum at the Uppsala University was completed in 1663 by medical professor and amateur architect Olaus Rudbeck. The cone-formed theatre is located in the cupola which Rudbeck placed on top of the Gustavianum building, at the time the main building of the university. Rudbeck had spent time in Leiden, and both the anatomical theatre and the botanical garden he founded in Uppsala in 1655 were influenced by his experiences there.The cathedral is so large it’s quite difficult to photograph. Pretty flash insideThe pulpit. I think if I was the minister I’d find this a bit intimidating. Gustavianum. Unfortunately it was closed when we were here but Pauline has visited before and says it’s impressive inside.Street artCarl Linnaeus museum and garden was worth a visit. Walking along the river towards our hotel. There are a lot of bicyclists here!
At the risk of editorialising I’m going to give you my thoughts on Finland. What a great country! It’s a lot like Japan in some ways, very safe, hardly any crime, the people are reserved but will do anything for you if you ask them. There’s very little homelessness here because they give homeless people a place to live. As in Japan it’s a fairly equitable society. The three countries in the world I have lived where people are particularly nice to each other (and noticeably to animals) would be Cuba, Japan and Finland, and unfortunately New Zealand about thirty years ago. Coincidence? Maybe.
A view of the river from the bridge just near our house, cathedral in the distance. I walked over this bridge most days on my way to the local shop.I hope it’s not too farty on board!MS Viking Glory, launched 2021. She has an electric motor mounted in an external pod that can swivel 360 degrees. Steam powered electric generator using LNG.We had a cabin with a view. The ship was exceptionally smooth and quiet, also relatively low on emissions, it’s a great way to travel.Turku in the distance there.Heading towards Stockholm Breakfast on board was excellent and we had a nice view.We liked these Viking Line toysI would have bought one but our bags are totally full unfortunately. One of the bars on the sun deckThe Viking Grace catching up with us at Mariehamn Mariehamn portThe view from our hotel in Uppsala is lovelyMy one weakness, my Achilles heel if you will. Liquorice shop in Uppsala. The icecream was excellent. This dog bakery possibly trumps the dog icecream shop we found in Helsinki. This is a famous tail-less cat in Uppsala. Like all great cities Uppsala has a river running through it.The clouds here can be spectacular.
We really enjoyed our time in Turku, we will miss it. Pauline has a week visiting the university here in Uppsala, this is an old university town from way back and I’m looking forward to exploring it.
Pauline had to give a talk in Helsinki on Thursday so we took the train on Wednesday night and stayed until Sunday, visiting some friends and having a look around. It’s a very nice city and easy to get around what with trams, the metro and buses all accessible with an excellent app on one’s phone.
Cocktails on the three masted schooner Jan Mayen We met up with a friend at Teurastamo and had icecreams, they even had icecreams for dogs.Sumu really enjoyed his icecream!So did weCocktails on the schooner, was a pleasant way to end the evening.Jan Mayen, built of oak in 1914 in Fredrikshavn, Denmark. She was used for smuggling alchohol from Sweden to Finland during prohibition, and was confiscated by the Finnish government, sailed under a Finnish flag for 90 years. She was an artic fishing vessel for a while, then a houseboat and now is owned by the Suomen Maritime Historical Sailing AssociationUspenski cathedral inaugurated in 1868It’s quite spectacular inside as wellWindows95man was the Finnish eurovision contestant, didn’t win unfortunately but was very amusing so I bought the tee shirt.Icebreakers on their summer holiday We had some nice dinners while we were here. This is a Cuban paella. We saw some baby geese while visiting Clare on her island Lauttasaari. It was a very nice visit, thanks Clare.The trams are coolThe public library, oodi, is quite dramatic. There’s even a cafe on the deck
They have robots to transport book boxes between the floors.
You can take out musical instruments with your library card and practice in one of the studios.Naturally there’s a makerspace.
It was nice to spend a few days in Helsinki, we are back in Turku now for our last week here. It’s been a great place to stay, we will miss it for sure.
We are staying at this rather nice place, just biked 26kms this morning so it’s good to have a break!The hotel GullvivanOn Friday we got a ride to Kustavi and picked up our bikes from the camping ground there, then rode to our hotel on BrändöWaiting for the ferry just out of Kustavi. It was a slightly anxious wait as we had to get to the big roro ferry by 1:30 which was about 8 kms away and this ferry was delayed for maintenance. You don’t expect to see immaculate Rover SD1s in the ferry car park!Waiting to get on the Roro ferry to Brändö – we made it!This morning we biked to the ferry terminal at Torsholma and back, via quite a lot of little islands.This church near the township of Brändö was lovely “To those lost at sea”Just charming This is the scenery while bikingIt’s hard to do it justice Nearly at Torsholma
Pauline has always raved about Åland and I can see why, I’m very happy we got here while I can still ride a bicycle 🙂
The aussies were there with crocodile and kangaroo burgersSix reasons to eat kangaroo, in finnish 🙂Number 6 was, it’s tasty. They are quite right there.The British were there in forceBritish tea!It was a popular event. The Finns do seem to like eating out. I guess they have to take advantage of the summer while they can.The fish and chips. Of the two, I actually liked the kangaroo burger more.British fudgeIt was a great day.
I wanted to visit Estonia while we were here as Pauline had already been a couple of times and said it was very nice. Also, it’s interesting to visit other countries particularly if its only a couple of hours on a ferry, so I took the train to Helsinki and booked a guided tour for the next day. Helsinki is pretty cool also of course. I stayed at a cheap hotel about ten minutes walk from the station. The next day a nice man in a van picked me up and took a bunch of us to the ferry terminal to get on the 9:30 sailing to Tallinn.
This was the ferry, the Finlandia. Big ship, 2000 passengers and 600 carsLeaving HelsinkiArriving in Tallinn
We were met at the port by our guide and jumped in a van to the old town.
Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, 19th century Russian orthodox. The Lutheran St John’s church was more to my taste to be honest.View of the old town from the wallThis seagull amused me, he (she) was very persistent and could not be moved even though hundreds of people were taking their photo.The other side of the wallTown squareI loved this sausage dog seatThe town hallNote the dragons, drainage for the gutteringPutler is not popular with this guy! The Russian embassy was just around the corner and had many posters with bloody handed dictators on them. The tricky thing for Estonia is they have around 100000 Russian citizens living there.This little house was cuteEx soviet agricultural truck, now artwork, gradually turning to rust.The beer was excellent and I bought a book from the only English bookshop in Estonia just to encourage them, and also I haven’t read this one yet.Goats cheese salad was also very tasty.This horse was a patient horse. They seemed to treat him well I was happy to see.View of a square with more modern buildings I came across this in the duty free shop on the ship but I wasn’t game to buy it. I do like liquorice but maybe not with vodka!Helsinki the next morning.
This was a successful side trip which helped my confidence in travelling by myself as I’m used to always having Pauline with me on trips and was a bit nervous about organising myself. Also, what a lovely place Estonia is. The people were friendly, food and drinks were definitely up to standard and the weather was superb. Would definitely recommend!
We caught this ferry to Nagu from Turku, takes about 2.5 hours, lovely voyage through some of the islands.The ferry was the Saaristolinja’s M/s Norrskär. The route was the blue one above.One of the ships of the maritime museum collectionOne of the boats along the riverThis ship the Bore is a hostel and museum ship now, you can stay there.One of the thousands of islandsNagu harbourWe had lunch at this restaurant, the waiter was a really nice guy. The Finns do tend to be rather reserved but when you talk to them they’re lovely.The hotel Stallbacken. It was a cow barn, converted in 2007
The hotel was about 4 kms away from the town, so we caught the bus. We were the only people staying there so we arranged a time to meet Johanna and she let us in and gave us a key and showed us the bikes we were hiring. She then went home and came back about 18:00 to cook our dinner. After dinner she went home again so we had the hotel to ourselves. She came back in the morning to make our breakfast. I’ve never experienced anything quite like this before. She was very nice and the meals were great, as was the room. I think it was a highlight of the stay, having that place all to ourselves like that.
The grounds of the hotelWe had dinner outside. We were the only people staying at the hotel, we felt a bit bad about it really but it was very nice. The book Pauline is reading is a history of the building and how they converted it. They really built this to last. The cows had to be kept warm in the winter.To get from one island to the next in the archipelago they have these free ferrys.The ferry is electric, pulls itself across by cable.We rode these bikes about 35 kms on dusty roads with a bit of a climb occasionally. I was quite happy when we got off them! But they did the job.
We biked across a couple of islands and then to Smörasken which is a scenic spot up a hill which is rather scenic.
The view from the top was panoramic. Leaving Nagu
Farewell Nagu, lovely place to visit, would come back for sure.
That was a very satisfying weekend, most enjoyable, thanks to all the people we met along the way.
May Day in Turku is quite a big deal, they celebrate workers rights of course but also the students. On the night before thousands of people assemble near the square and all put their university caps on at exactly 6pm. To quote the students web page:
MAY DAY IS COMING (or did it ever leave..?)
30.4. May Day Eve
Get your mead brewing, find your student caps from the dusty shelves, sew all your patches, fetch you picnic blankets from the summer storage… It’s time for May Day to start again!
May Day or “Vappu” is the Finnish version of Labour Day that we celebrate to honour working people. It is also the biggest student festival of the year, bringing together tens of thousands of students and other citizens of Turku.
May Day Eve starts with TYY and organisations giving out punch around the campus area. TYY’s own Punch Stand is in the University Hill.
At 16.45, a traditional May Day Parade leaves from the University Hill towards the Turku Art Museum Hill, wherethe whole city gathers to listen to music and a speech from the Chair of the TYY Executive Board. At 6 sharp, we all put on our students caps (ylioppilaslakki). The moment when thousands of students and alumni with their caps have gathered at Aurakatu is by far the most impressive part of Vappu, so you definitely don’t want to miss this moment! After the “capping” (Fin. “lakitus”), Vappu celebration continues in the Runeberg Park where dental students will wash The Lily of Turku statue and give Lily a student cap. At 19.00 the Technology students of Turku give Paavo Nurmi a student cap as well.
Naturally there was a bouncy castlePeople hanging out at the squareThe students all wear different coloured overalls depending on which college they are from, and they have sponsors.We came home and celebrated the sun being out by sitting on our balcony with some chips and a drink. First time it’s been warm enough.
We had to get the bus from Stockholm central at 6:30 am which would have been no problem if we hadn’t slept through Paulines alarm at 5:45. Luckily I woke up at 6:07 and we just made it. The Viking Lines ferry “Grace” is absolutely enormous, we had a nice cabin and the cost was 30 euros each which is not bad for a 10:30 hour 320km voyage. Sailing through the archipelago on the way out takes hours and is beautiful. There are hundreds of little islands with people’s holiday houses on them.
Sailing through the Stockholm archipelago on the good ship “Grace”Breakfast with quite a viewThe breakfast buffet on board was quite impressive You could choose from several bars to do your dancingApproaching ÅlandDocking at Mariehamn, bit of a queueAt tea time we went to the restaurant where they charge you by the weight of your plate, and naturally we had meat balls. Was excellent. Bought a Viking Line tee shirt, you can’t have too many tee shirts, particularly in a cold climate like FinlandOur apartment for the next two months is lovely, we’re very happy. Two minutes walk to the University. The apartment building. The local church is quite impressive Nice evening walk along the river Good to see the support for Ukraine
The e-ferrys Aurora and Tycho Brahe are huge, they plug in automatically at each end and charge while disembarking passengers and vehicles. We stayed on board for a few crossings and had our lunch there, very pleasant, a lot of people do the same as there’s a large duty free shop on board.
We took the train to Helsingor. The distance is about 3 nautical miles to Helsingborg, takes about 20 minutes. The Aurora was converted to battery electric in 2017, as was the sister ship Tycho BraheGetting ready to dockNyhavn
Next day, we got up early and took the train to Malmo in Sweden, had a nice lunch there, then jumped on the train to Stockholm.
smørrebrødThe swedish countryside was lovely, mostly forest and lakes. Pleasant trip but Pauline didn’t like the way the train tilted around bends, it was a bit like riding a motorcycle which some people find more natural than others probably!
Stockholm is a very grand city but it’s lovely. We had a day there so Pauline went and visited her friend in the morning and then we took a tram to the Abba museum and walked back along the waterfront. Spectacular walk. The Abba museum is worth a visit, even if you’re not the biggest Abba fan.
Pauline at the Abba museumThese were holograms of the band and you could get up and sing with themThe museum entranceIt’s very hard to photograph but lovely to walk around Hard working tugView from our hotelAlong the waterfront, very grand buildings as you can see.
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