Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day to everyone! I thought since Valentines Day is a romantic holiday, I will write about our wedding anniversary trip we did last autumn with my husband.  Althought it is more of a travelling story than a romantic one but anyway I felt it´s  a good time to write about it today.

For few years now we have made a weekend trip with my husband around our wedding anniversary. Our son is not a kid anymore so we feel like it´s time to take more time for us two. So we headed to the eastern Finland with our caravan car. Our destination was in Sotkamo at Vuokatti but we left a day before to first visit Koli (read older post here). Evening was foggy and rainy so we just parked our car to sleeping mode.  I woke up really early to a migraine I  suffer from time to time, so I took my medication and went out for a walk, it always helps a little. And it was worth to wake up so awful way since the morning was really beautiful. Sun was shining and it was so quiet. Nobody else was awake there yet, well few black-throated divers that did´t really care about my presence, they just kept fishing  on the lake. I walked a road between the Koli national park area and the lake Pielinen.  I love those quiet morning moments.

When I headed back to our car my medication had work its magic and my husband had woken up too. So we moved the breakfast for later and drove up to Koli hills to see how the morning looked like up at the hill. A lot different than my morning walk but beautiful in different way. Some thin fog clouds had flown on the lake and the sun that shined through them gave everything this silverly look. The contrast to what had been half an hour before was huge.

On the top of Koli

Next we turned the car towards Vuokatti and arrived there just in time to watch some  roller ski competition with most of best cross country skiers of Finland. When we booked our hotel  we had no idea there´s going to be an event like that but it was a big plus since both of us had always wanted to see roller ski races.  I like to ski with my rollers skis too but I would never have the courage to go so fast with them, well I could only go so fast to downhill anyway….

Roller ski race

Part of our room at Katinkulta spa

Top of Vuokatti hill

Top of Vuokatti hill

Next night was a little bit of luxury with spa, eating well and sleeping in a suite with our own sauna. Not that we would have really needed our own sauna when Vuokatti spa had so many different saunas from smokesauna  to a sauna with walls made of salt. Great place for a tourist to test all sorts of Finnish saunas.

Morning meant that it was time to head home but we made one linger stop on the way. That was to one of Finlands national landscapes, Väisälänmäki at the town of Lapinlahti.  It´s on the hill (mäki means a hill) and there´s a beautiful view to surrounding areas.

Väisälänmäki

Väisälänmäki

Sightseeing tower at Väisälänmäki

Väisälänmäki

The history of the area also involves Kaski fires, kaski meaning slash-and-burn, when they burn woodland areas to make fields. A Finnish painter Eero Järnefelt painted one of his best know paintings “Under the Yoke” ( Burning the brushwood) at the area. You can see the photo of it in our blog text about Helsinki. It was the main reason to visit Ateneum art museum to see the landscape we saw in real live as a painting made in 1893. They still maintain the fields as cultural landscapes and cows work in landscaping.  They keep the fields open and the landscape how it use to be. At Väisälänmäki there´s also a little cafe in the summertime, really cute place! We just had to have a cup of coffee there before heading home. We had really nice and relaxing weekend together and I can´t wait our next years trip.

Cafe at Väisälänmäki

Väisälänmäki

Väisälänmäki

Birches of Väisälänmäki

Landscape artists

Landscape artists

 

 

Lauhanvuori and Katikan kanjoni

It´s November again and here in middle and southern parts of Finland it means that the weather can change from nearly minus twenty to several degrees plus. So the snow comes and goes, one day we live in winter wonderland and the next the grass is green. So it´s a good time to write a little blog from an autumn trip with my friend to Lauhanvuori national park.

Autumn here was really colorful. The weekend we made our trip was one of the last ones before the leaves fell down. Lauhanvuori is located in the Botnia area, in the municipalities Kauhajoki and Isojoki. Vuori actually means mountain but in this case it´s a hill. Of course Botnia area is really flat so Lauhanvuori is a little higher up. The picture above where my friend stand´s next to the bench was a perfect place for a pause. We sat there for a while just enjoy the nature. We had a quiet moment there since the nice autumn weekend had inspired a lot of people to the park. The little unclear water area in the picture was the funniest little spring we had ever seen, we stared at it for a long time. The water bubbled up from the soft sand and the place of the bubbles changed all the time, it looked like something was moving underneath the sand.  Very hypnotic!

The rocky part seen above is called Kivijata and it stands out from the pine forest surrounding it. Air was chilly but just right for a long walk. And for picking some cranberries from the little wetlands of the area, I could have stayed there for hole day.  We also cooked our lunch on the fire just before returning to the car. Our cooking place was next to a little lake and the park had quiet down a lot since we came.  In the end we sat there on our own. We walked about fifteen kilometers that day around the park, a little more than planned but  that happens all the time on our trips. We spent the night in our caravan car on the parking lot, mostly eating candies and drinking wine… After a healthy day we needed some balance. We got an early start in the morning and visited the tower on the top of the hill Lauhavuori. Morning was clear and the sun even tried to shine. So on our way back we decided to make a little side trip to Kauhaneva-Pohjankangas, which has got a new area added to it called Katikan kanjoni.

Katikan kanjoni was a place with really natural forest and an little river running down this little valley, or a canyon as the name is in Finnish.

The valley was really peaceful while we walked through the little nature path around the area. We got to spend nice relaxed morning in the nature. But when we returned to the car the parking lot was full of cars and a large group of people was just walking to the park singing and dogs barking.. So we felt really lucky having enjoyed everything just the two of us.

We had a great friends weekend in the nature which gave a nice break from the every day life. Autumn is just so beautiful time with the melancholic feeling of the summer ending. But now we wait for the real winter to come and all the fun with it. In Lapland there is already 30 cm of snow and even -30 degrees minus, can´t wait to get that weather here. Keeping my fingers crossed for it to come soon!

Tower at Lauhavuori nationalpark

View from the tower

Rokua National Park

Last July we were heading back to Lapland with two caravan cars. I, my husband and our son in one car and my parents in the other. Our first stop was at the national park of Rokua in Vaala. We left our cars on the parking place in the southern side of the park and packed our bags with snacks. Sun was setting slowly but Finnish summer nights are short so little evening walk wasn´t a problem.

Pitkäjärvi

Up to Pookivaara

Rokua pineforests

Rokua is a really small park (8,8 km² ) founded  in 1956. It’s also a part of Rokua Unesco Global Geoparks together with some other areas at Oulu. Geology is one of the reasons why Rokua is a national park. The esker of Rokua which is the main area of the national park is made by ice moving sand and stones during the Ice Age.

Firewatcher´s tower

FIrewatchers tower

Firewacthers hut

View from the tower

Rokua forests are full of pine trees and lichen grows everywhere on the ground. The side of the park where we started our walk, has a little lake called Pitkäjärvi, on the shore there´s fireplace where to cook and you can reach it with a whealchair too. We walked up to the Rokua esker to the peak of Pookivaara. There´s an old tower which was used by the fire watcher to prevent forest fires but now it´s for the tourists. My son, husband and my dad climed up to the tower to see the sights but my mom and I thought it´s best to stay on the ground.. We grilled some sausages at a hut located up the hill with few other houses, rental cottage and an old tiny fire watchers house. It´s easy to see how in these grounds could start a forest fire. Land is mostly sand and everything is really dry.

Pookivaara, rental hut and hut for free use

On oour way back it was getting darker

We past this family on our way to the car

Our tummies full of sausage we walked back to the car in the darkening night. We were the only people at Pookivaara and on Pitkäjärvi there was only one person camping which was unusual since it was July but I quess Rokua is so small park most people make only day trips there.

We are on holiday!

It’s July and our trip to Lapland is on! So there will be a little break on our blog but we are updating our Facebook site and Instagram. My sister updates Instagram and I update Facebook.

 

Kivalot

Sattasvaara

Samifarm Välimaa

But here’s some sneak peak to our trip. Happy summer to everyone!!

 

My husbands gought us some lunch

Pulmanki

Sovintovaara in Inari

Easter holiday part. 3

This last post from Easter has taken a while to publish. First of all we had such a great weather for a long time that it didn’t feel like sitting by the computer. Then I was traveling and my sister bought a house and has been busy moving in. Now back to traveling on summer holiday, but here some memories from the spring time.

I finished our last post on the Kaarina castle ruins afer which we headed to the National park of Teijo. It´s partially an old iron foundry area. So there are still buildings in of those times in three different locations. My pictures are from Kirjakkala area which is the smallest one. Even thought Teijo is right next to the ocean the area has several lakes instead of sea shore. We also stopped at the church of Teijo which is on nice hill top at the little village.

Kirjakkala Ruukki

Teijo church

Kirjakkala Ruukki

Kirjakkala

We made a stop in several places around the national park but decided not to walk longer here, mostly because we wanted to make it to Hanko before dark. But we did walk to this beautiful cape where a lean-to  with a fireplace was located. People were fishing on the shores and having picnic at the top of the cape. I mostly like to take pictures without people but on this trip it was challenging. But someday we might to go back for a longer visit, I know my husband wants to because he bought some local beer from Teijo village shop and apparently it was good….

Teijo nationalpark

Teijo nationalpark

Teijo nationalpark

Teijo nationalpark

Teijo nationalpark

Hanko was little further than we originally wanted to drive but since I always wanted to visit there  and the drive from Teijo to Hanko wasn´t so long we headed there anyway. Hanko is the southest point of Finland if you don´t count the islands. At the far end, after the city of Hanko there´s harbour area as well as lot of beaches and Tulliniemi nature reserve. Not too good place for our dog, since naturally you can´t take dogs to the beach but also the nature reserve was forbidden for dogs.  So she got a bone and stayed happily in the car. The sun was setting down when we walked in the nature reserve that goes on the shore line all the way to the southest point. All the people that were still there were returning while we were just on our way there. But the sun was so beautifully setting down and the colours were amazing.

Tulliniemi

Tulliniemi

Tulliniemi

Tulliniemi

Tulliniemi

Tulliniemi

On the beach I really missed my binoculars since there were lots of birds passing by since it was migrating time.  Most of the birds right next to the shore were common mergansers and cranes heading in large groups to inner Finland. Absolutely beautiful evening. After all those crowded places it was so relaxing to walk on the beach without anyone and look at the sea. We didn´t reach the most southest point of Tulliniemi because it was getting dark and we wanted to see the older side of Hanko city.

So we turned back after walking on the more forested part of the path which some of it had old structures of a camp of female prisoners of war, kind of a spooky place. So we visited a little beach on the other side of the cape, the cape was only few hundred meters wide from point we left our car. In the middle was a harbour where they store all the new cars imported to Finland, other side was nature conservation area and on the other side a beach.

Tulliniemi beach

Tulliniemi beach

Hanko old town was beautiful, it´s filled with really decorative old villas from late 19th century. At 1879 they built a spa to Hanko which made it a popular summer city. We stopped at the Hanko casino which nowadays is a restaurant during summer time. We walked a tiny path there and on the beach. While driving away from Hanko at the east side of the cape, we got to see how long the sandy beaches actually are, they just went on and on.

After having a good night sleep near Hanko we started our journey back to home. We had the whole day to go back so we stopped at few places too. First was a place where I definately want to go back in the summer time. It´s called Häntälän notkot and it´s located in the municipality of Somero. It´s a agriculrural heritage habitat which belongs to Natura 2000 network. But it is easier to show with the pictures what the place looks like.

A nature path goes around the area and we walked trought it. During summer time cows take care of the valley so there are fences and you go inside them and walk most of the way there with the cows. Now it was so early spring they weren´t there yet but it was such a beautiful place anyway. And we were the only ones there. First summer flowers were already on blossom but I can only imagine how green the place is in summer.

Häntälän notkot

Häntälän notkot

Our last stop on the trip was at the national park of Torronsuo. It´s a little wetland park in Tammela. It´s the deepest wetland in Finland. The peat layer is over 10 meters deep. We walked a little nature path on the wetland and climbed to this bird watching tower.  The sun had gone behind the clouds so it wasn´t as warm as it had been so far.  The parking lot was so filled with cars we hardly fit in there. The last Easter day had gotten people really on the move. After a really fun trip to the south it was nice to go back home and start the spring work in our garden.

Torronsuo

Torronsuo birdwatching tower

Torronsuo

Torronsuo

Torronsuo

 

Easter holiday part 1.

I know I many times start my blogs by writing a little bit about the weather and the season, but now it is kind of hard to write since the weather changes daily (or every hour). Temperature has been changing from over +20 degrees Celsius to minus five and snow fall. We have only had couple of snow flakes today and nothing on the ground but last weekend everything was white again.  However now it should change back to warm weather. So it is better not to take all our winter clothes to storage yet even though the summer clothes have been taken from the closet. All the trees are starting to be green again and the first garden flowers have appered. At the north some skiing centers are still open but here most of the snow disappeared around Easter time.

So to the real story part. We didn´t have strict plan when we started our caravan car for the first time this year. But we had a little direction since we wanted to go to a place where was no more snow. So we headed towards Turku and decided to stop where we would feel like it.  We ended up visiting four national parks, one strict nature reserve and many other fun places.

Our first real stop was in Puurijärvi-Isosuo national park. It is located in the municipalities of Kokemäki, Huittinen and Sastamala. It´s a real bird park since wetlands and lakes cover huge part of the area. It´s a small park with 27 km2. It was founded 1993.

Puurijärvi

Puurijärvi

Puurijärvi bird watching tower

Puurijärvi bird watching tower

Puurijärvi

And there would have been lots of migrating birds to see but it was hard to recognize the species since I forgot my binoculars home. But swans, common coots and osprey we saw atleast. Snow was already gone and the paths were pretty dry. We visited a big bird watching tower and also walked a little nature path through the wetland. Easter had really got people on the move since the parking lot was filled with cars. They had promised warmer weather than normally in April so I guess that was one reason.  And it was nice weather if you don´t count the fact that sun only peaked behind the clouds every once in a while.

Isosuo

Isosuo

Isosuo

Puurijärvi

In the evening we went for a nice evening walk in the Vaskijärvi strict nature reserve in Pöytyä. Sun was just setting down and birds were singing in the old spruce forest. And it was nice to walk in the forest without any other people.

It was really silent and peacefull and it´s definately a place which I want to get a better look sometime.

 

In the morning we headed to Kurjenrahka national park which was really close to the place we had stayed the night. Kurjenrahka is also really small park like most of the southern national parks.It´s 29 km2 and it´s founded 1998. It was also really crowded. Lots of families had came for a picnic and a walk in the nature.  We decided to walk only the closest and shortest path and be on our way.

Kurjenrahka

Kurjenrahka

Kurjenrahka

Kurjenrahka

We walked by the border rock of Kuhankuono which is still on the border of seven municipalities. We also met this little green fellow on our path.

Kurjenrahka also has a nature center where this funny crane pictures are from, since Kurki means crane, so it´s kind of the name bird of Kurjenrahka.

From Kurjenrahka we drove to Turku since my son wanted to visit the city also. And walking by the Aura river is always nice. Below are some pictures from Turku and I will continue our Easter story in another post.

Turku castle

the fregat Suomen Joutsen

Aurariver

Luosto fell

Days are getting longer really fast although the winter seems to be back and the sun is hiding again. (You can see the latest changes of the scenery on our Instagram.) Ten plus degrees limit was broken during few days and it felt so warm after the winter. Our yard turned into a giant pond and there´s still lot of snow left.. It´s so hard to stay at home these days, travelling bug comes out with the sun.. So I dug up these photos from a really sunny day we spend on Luosto fell, to help to ease the travelling pain.

Luosto area belongs to the Pyhä-Luosto national park and it´s located in the central Lapland in the municipality of Sodankylä. The oldest national park in Finland (Pyhätunturi national park) enlarged when connected with the area of Luosto in 2005. The fell top we climbed to is called Ukko-Luosto and it´s one of the twelve peaks of the national park. Ukko-Luosto only belongs to it partially since there are also few skiing slopes on its side. We have driven past Luosto fell so many times when it has been covered in fog so when the sun was shining from a clear sky we decided to stop and climb up. I was travelling with my son and my parents.

There is a path leading up to the rocky fell with a lot of stairs for you. The 3,6 kilometers long path is worth the climb since up there is a great view to surrounding forest and wetlands. The fell is 514 meters high, second highest peak in the national park. That is probably one reason why they have built a weather radar ball up there.

Luosto also has some hotels, cottages and even a little spa. There´s also an ametisth mine you can visit with a guide. In the summer time Luosto is quite quiet place although with a lot of reindeer.  All the cottages built in the Luosto area are from this grey KELO log which makes the small village look really pretty. 

Now I really have to concentrate waiting the good parts of spring, sun, warmth and the return of the migrating birds. Well, easter is nearly here so hopefully we have couple of days for a little trip…

“I´m a wanderer”

I´ve been watching few clips of the new Moomin series which was just released. When my son was small we used to watch the older version, made in the 1990´s all the time.  One day in June 2010 while traveling in Lapland with my parents, we had already had a fun day hiking on Pallas fells. My son was nearly five years old. We started driving the road circling the other side of the Pallas fells. At that time, if my son saw a sign of a walking path or a national park or anything similar, an immediate scream came from his car seat. Stop, I want to go walking! We had already walked many kilometres that day so all the adults were a little sceptic when the scream came. But my son was still looking really energetic so we stopped. We were changing our shoes before starting and my mom asked for the last time from my son. -Are you sure you are not too tired to walk? We have all ready walked so much today? He gave my mom this look like she just doesn’t get it, turned on his heels, started walking the path and yell in a very calm voice to us: “I’m a wanderer”. It´s a line that Snufkin says in one of the episode when Moomin mamma asked him is he all right hiking that long.

The path was a short, 3,5 kilometres long, circle road called Pyhäjoen luontopolku. Little river flows next to the path. We soon came to this really beautiful place filled with ferns just about to open for the summer. The pale green colour surrounded the forest was really beautiful and I still remember very well my little fellow walking in the middle of it way a head of us. Bird cherries were blossoming and some of them bent over the path.

Tha path also run by a little lake. We had some rain drops on our jackets on the shore but it didn´t start to rain. All the spring flowers which had all ready blossomed at home were now blooming in Lapland like kingcups and cloudberry. A little swamp we walked by was full of the delicate white cloudberry flowers.  When we got closer to road again the path walked through this little meadow area where junipers grew together with meadow flowers. The area is taken care by the Metsähallitus, otherwise it would be growing bushes and trees after some years. The field was used by the Pallasjärvi forest keeper long time ago.

Afterwards we have driven past this place so many times and never stopped but next time we will! It´s such a pretty place. Spring is not so popular time to visiti Lapland because the weather can be unpredictable but I love the season when nature starts to wake up after the long winter.  Soon that time will be here again…

 

Autumn holiday part. 1

I, my son and my parents spent the kids autumn holiday week in Lapland. We travelled by my dad´s campervan. We spent the first few days on the eastern side of Saariselkä and Inari and then drove west to Ylläs. The weather was everything from foggy and rainy to minus degrees and sun but no snow this year. Which wasn’t a surprise since it has been the warmest October ever in Finland. So this time there will be no snowy photos like last year from Pallas ( you can check those from earlier stories). But we had fun anyway, walking and biking and just relaxing.

I have divided the story in two parts so there will be another text coming up later. We drove the fastest way up north in western Finland through the Botnia area straight to Rovaniemi where we spent the first night and drove next day to Saariselkä.

After a lot of driving we wanted to go out walking. The weather was really foggy, we had to slow down the speed because of the fog on our way. We drove to the Urho Kekkonen national park in Tankavaara where there´s a nature center which was closed for the autumn. We chose only a three kilometer circle path because it wasn’t so long to darkness and we also wanted to make a fire and eat some sausages.

The forest was really foggy but in a way it was really beautiful and kind of mystique. It felt like we were more in the middle of nowhere than we actually were since the road to Inari wasn’t that far. Our barbecue place was almost at the end of the circle. There was a little hut where we were able to sit and enjoy the warmth of the fire. Air was really warm for the time of year but it was really humid. It was almost dark when we arrived to our car but we stayed for a while since my son wanted to test his new bike on the empty parking lot. We were also the only ones walking on the path,  wonderful silence! We stayed nearby for the night and  continued our way in the morning.

Our target for the next day was the homestead of Raja-Jooseppi. The homestead is located  right on the frontier zone line to Russia, 55 kilometers from the town of Ivalo. Actually earlier people had to report themselves to the border station before entering the area. Now the frontier zone line has been moved so you can visit the homestead without notification.  In the morning it was raining a bit but it stopped when we arrived there.

It’s a short walk of few hundred meters from the parking lot to the area in the beautiful north Lapland forest. The borderline goes right next to the path. A man called Joosef Sallila, who used to live close to our home, moved to this location with his life partner Matilda in early 1900.  The area includes about ten little huts and domestic objects like an oven in the ground where they use to bake their bread. The life there must have been really isolated since the nearest roads of that time were really far. They fished, hunted, kept reindeers and some domestic animals to survive there. They also digged gold and catched pearls from the river.  It really makes you think how easy our modern-day life is now.

After we drove back, we took a break next to the road on the shore of Lutto river. Sun started to shine and the clouds were disappearing. It kind of bugged me since all my photos from Raja-Jooseppi were a bit dark. The place was so great from my opinion it would have been nicer to show more sunny sites. We still drove a little bit north to Inari and stayed the night by Inari lake side. The air was bright and getting colder, it was the first night on our trip when the temperature went to minus degrees. We chose a nice open spot in case the northern lights would appear and they did but they weren’t really bright that night, more like little blury. So I didn’t snap any photos. The lower picture is from the next morning when the sun was slowly getting up and there was some mist on the water surface. Perfect view for waking up!

Autumn Sunday in Seitseminen National Park

 

We have spent so much time at home lately that my son started suggesting that we should go somewhere to hike and make a fire. So Sunday one week agowe drove to Seitseminen National Park which is the closest national park from our house. We know that usually on sunny autumn Sunday there is lots of people there, so we searched the map for a place little less crowded. And we were right, there were lots of cars on parking lots.  But our choice of track was good, we only saw few people and no-one at the camping site.

The first part of our walk wasn’t really a path but more as a road. The day was sunny but also cold. It was really the first day that you felt the winter is on its way. When we had walked few kilometers that road-like path, we came to a lake which was occupied by a beaver, there was fallen trees everywhere. Our path also took a turn to another direction and really got smaller and not so well taken care of. From some parts the duckboards were in really bad shape. But we didn’t mind since it was peaceful to walk without rush. Trees had yellow leaves and wind blew them around.

The beavers work followed our chosen all the way to the camping site called Liesijärvi. There were two places to make a fire, a lean-to and a little further a normal fireplace.  We chose the normal one which was in a little peninsula. We made fire and cooked some veggie burgers and had really nice time. We walked the same way back so our route was 9 kilometres long totally. Just enough for a relaxing Sunday walk. We stopped at the traditional farm of Kovero on our way home which is one of the most visited places in Seitseminen. It was already evening so the national park was quiet and the people were gone.