In Nordic Europe

Right now I'm in Stockholm, Sweden. I've been here for a few days, and have another full day here before heading slightly farther north to the city of Uppsala. I'll be spending only a couple days there, before heading back home to Canada...

I've been spending the past month in a selective area of nordic Europe with a very good friend. It's been my first time on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, and I've enjoyed just about every minute of it. Our trip is now drawing to a close, but it has been very fun! We started off by flying into Tallinn, Estonia and spending about 4 good days there. There is a beautifully preserved medieval old town in Tallinn, and to see that was one of the main reasons I wanted to travel there. From Tallinn, we bussed about 2 hours south to the university town of Tartu, which is also very beautiful, situated on the river Emajogi. From Tartu we travelled 6 hours west to Estonia's largest island, Saaremaa, and spent a good 5 days there, enjoying the 14th century castle, complete with moat and fortifications, the coastal scenery, and the laid back island lifestyle. Of everywhere we went in Estonia, we found people to be the most friendly in Kuressaare (the main city on the island, where we stayed). Estonia is such a beautiful, and somewhat haunting place, from the little bit of it we managed to see over about 2 weeks.

Our next stop was Helsinki, Finland, which we reached by ferry from Tallinn (we took the bus back there from Kuressaare in about 4 hours). We really enjoyed Helsinki, and I feel we got a special insight into Finnish culture (at least southern Finnish culture) because we had the privilege to stay with a very generous and hospitable Finn, an old friend of my travelling companion. After three full days in Helsinki, she brought us to her family's summer cottage (mökki in Finnish) for two days, for an even more authentic Finnish experience, complete with a traditional wood stove sauna right next to a gorgeous lake. The cottage was situated just north of Heinola, about 2 hours north of Helsinki by bus. As if just being at the cottage and taking sauna weren't enough of an experience, we were also treated to a wide variety of Finnish foods, from pulla (a comforting bread to have with coffee, spiced with cardamom) to lakkahilloa (cloudberry jam) on leipäjuustoa (literally 'bread cheese,' a light, flavourless cheese that squeaks between your teeth). After the mökki experience, we headed further north to Jyväskylä, another smallish university town, situated right in the heart of Finland's lake district. After spending a couple of days there, we took the train south to Turku (or Åbo as it's known in Swedish; it's in an area of Finland with a history of Swedish rule and Swedish language). We spent only one full day there, before heading here to Stockholm, via ferry. The passage through the beautiful archipelago took all of 11 hours! Luckily, we decided to go on the day ferry (rather than the overnight one), and so could afford to book a basic cabin where we could relax away from all the other passengers.

Like I said above, we have been in Stockholm since the 2nd of July, and I am really loving it here, despite feeling more tired than ever. Our trip is nearing it's end, and I'm glad to be here in Stockholm at this point in the trip, otherwise, I might very well have been overwhelmed by the size and beauty of this city!

I will most definitely have to return to this part of the world in the future; it is all so lovely, and there is so much more of it that I would like to see one day. Though we've been travelling for just about a full month, and we are both quite tired, I think that this trip has been a good length, and that we've seen the right number of places and spent the right amount of time in each of them.