Finland

516km through Naantali, Turku, Pitkäjärvi, Renko, Hämeenlinna, Valkeakoski, Tampere, Sattula, Jokela, Järvenpää, Helsinki.

All at sea.

Due to a lot of bad weather, we didn’t take that many photographs while on the road. Imagine a big dark forest, lots of misty lakes, and two cyclists in brightly coloured raincoats pedalling along though the puddles: that was cycling in Finland!

Rain aside, Finland was ace – the last stop on the Nordic tour. Our Finnish adventure got off to a great start; when we checked in for the Kappelskar-Naantali ferry, the woman in the ticket booth informed us that meals on board were included in the ticket price, and that ‘breakfast is served now!’ What do two cycle tourers like better than a free buffet breakfast!? We pedalled up the steep metal ramp, secured the bikes with the various bungees and ropes we carry, and found a comfy corner with a sea view to settle in for the 10 hour crossing. We got our money’s worth of ferry-breakfast (scrambled eggs, bread, cheese, gherkins, Swedish meatballs, potato gratin, watermelon, orange juice, coffee…) another feast at dinner time, and rolled off into Naantali later that evening.

Flowers and sea

We’d hoped to find a free camp somewhere at the edge of the town, but hadn’t reckoned on there being a festival on. The beaches were too busy to provide a hidden tent spot, so we gave up and headed for the campsite. This felt like a bit of a cheat, as we’d only planned on cycling the 26km to Turku the next day, but it couldn’t be helped! There were a few other cyclists at the campsite, including an eighty year old German man, who was making his fourth trip around Finland, to the Nordkapp and back. I found this very encouraging.

Finland is 10% water…

We’d booked a room in the university halls in Turku, for a little (modest) treat, and as we wanted to spend a couple of days looking around the city. The halls are used as a hostel in the summer; it was nice to pretend we were students for a few days. We had a bright, clean room and there was a sauna in the basement. I think I’d always associated saunas with the Swedes, but they were in fact a Finnish invention. In Finland there is a sauna for every three people: they are mad about saunas. So I suppose it is only natural that the students would need their own. I had the women’s all to myself, but Steve shared the men’s with another tourist, and so found out that a sauna is supposed to be enjoyed in the nude.

Light spells (for Frances)

Turku was another lovely city, another place I felt I could live in – where I could happily slot into an alternate Finnish life. It felt a lot like Bristol, with the bars and cafes strung along the riverside, and big ships, hotel boats and restaurant boats (that one could be the Thekla, that one the Apple, and is that a craft beer emporium around the corner?). We visited the cathedral, took the free ferry across the river and had icecreams. We joined the streams of cycle traffic and barrelled along in the sunshine, happy as always to be riding the bikes unladen. The intrepid adventurer that I am, I mostly enjoyed having tea in bed from a white china mug, and watching the news in the kitchen with a raisinbread breakfast. The next day we had beans on toast and listened to Radio 4; it doesn’t get much better than that when you need a rest and you’re far from home!

Turku cathedral

Free ferry

We’d planned our route in Finland to follow the ancient Ox Road, the Hämeen Härkätie. After leaving Turku, we cycled on the 10 for a while; though used to big roads, this was horrible, with so many big lorries rushing past, and blinding spray from the rain-wet tarmac. We hopped onto the Hämeen Härkätie at Tavisjoki and stayed with it up to Hämeenlinna. As we cycled through the countryside, I tried to place how it felt different from Sweden, and what had changed about the landscape. It was certainly beautiful, with fields of ripe corn and pink clover. The roads were banked with harebells now, the forest dominated by shaggy firs. Maybe there were more green houses in Finland than the reds and yellows of Sweden. The air often smelled of Christmas trees. There were silver birches with spindly trunks, the bark like the skin of snow tigers.

On the Ox Road

It rained a lot. There were mushrooms poking through the grass and the trees were dark and dripping. We cycled through a sudden torrential downpour, through a patch of hail, and out again into the brilliant sunshine, with a wide beaming rainbow. A dark and windy morning, always threatening rain, took us through Somero and across the edge of the Liesjärvi national park. It was cold, and I was tired after only a morning’s cycle, so we stopped to make coffee under a big wooden shelter. I picked blueberries, and the wind was whipping the treetops as the sky darkened. There were wild strawberries gleaming all along the roadside, brilliant against the damp green ground. As the rain began in earnest, the Ox Road took us along a hilly, sandy dirt road. Our struggling bikes gathered wet crunchy sand in every moving part, and my rear hub, already worn, became full of water and developed a typewriter clatter. We made slow, soaking wet progress, until we rejoined the 10 and found a bathing place to camp at in Renko. The rain stopped, we put up the tent, and used saucepans of lake water to wash the grit from our bikes. Things were looking up, until I tipped my mug of tea over inside the tent.

Renko camping.

After Hämeenlinna we followed the 10 all the way up to Tampere. We crossed bridges over huge lakes as big as the sea, their distant edges swallowed in mist. There were tiny islands with stone shores dipping sharply down into the water, and spruce trees clinging to the boulders.

Lake on a sunnier day.

Don’t tell Steve, but the real reason I wanted to go to Tampere was to visit the Moominvallley museum. The basement of the Tampere Art Museum houses an exhibition of Tove Jansson’s drawings and paintings, as well as models made by the artist (and Tove’s partner) Tuulikki Pietilä. Tove Jansson is a real hero of mine, and I was so excited to see her work in the flesh. It was a joy to see her beautiful drawings: the tiny, careful ink sketches, and the exquisite watercolour illustrations. The exhibition tells the story of a journey home; the first piece is a wooden model ship, with the inhabitants of Moominvalley packing up and readying to sail. This seemed quite apt for us, as we head slowly back to England.

The centrepiece of the exhibition is the Moomin house. Built by Tove, Tuulikki and Pentti Eistola, the house is a two-metre tall marvel. Tuulikki was the head carpenter, Tove wallpapered all the rooms; they built it freely, with no plan or blueprint, and the house grew floor by floor. The roof is tiled with wooden shingles, the walls clad in blue-painted planks. All the jam jars in the cellar have hand written labels. There is a sauna in the basement which you need a torch to peep into. Moominpappa’s bedroom is in the style of a ship’s cabin (as he spent his wild youth at sea). There are pictures and maps on the walls, and all the dear characters are dotted about the house. It was made with such care and attention to detail, and with a sense of fun and surprise: it is one of the most delightful things I have ever seen. You weren’t allowed to take pictures – you will just have to visit yourself to see it!

Look who I met!

We cycled all around Tampere – to the observation tower on the hill, to the market place and harbourside. We visited the modernist church nicknamed ‘the silo of souls’; it was lovely and bright and warm inside, with the high narrow windows and all the Finnish pinewood. The Plevna brewery in the old cotton mills was a real treat; we tried a mead and a delicious stout. Apparently the one thing you must eat in Tampere is the mustamakkara: blood sausage with lingonberry jam, and a carton of milk on the side. We shared a portion at the marketplace; it looked unspeakably disgusting, but was pretty good, with an oaty, rye-like taste, a bit like haggis.

The Modernist church

Sausage?

Plevna

I would describe Finnish patisserie as ‘consistently disappointing’. We kept accidentally buying strange bland pastries, filled with plain rice or potato. Steve chose a big triangular donut, but found it to be full of grey mince and rice. Admittedly, this one was rather good:

Yum

Since Sweden, the market stalls had been selling chanterelles is golden, tumbling heaps. I’d never tried them before, so was keen to get some before the season ended. I was a little concerned I wouldn’t be able to do them justice with just a camper’s cooking supplies. But just sliced, seasoned, sauteed and simmered in butter, they were absolutely delicious.

Chanterelles

We retraced our steps on the way out of Tampere, back to Hämeenlinna for a look at the castle. Through Sattula and Jokela, and there was a warm headwind blowing from the south, bringing the good weather with it, but slowing and wearying us no end. We camped across the road from a golf course, where the gentle thunking of clubs went on late into the warm evening.

Hameenlinna castle

Gravel patch camp.

The next morning was bright and perfect, with a cool refreshing breeze and a glorious blue sky. To step sleepily out of the tent and splash cold water on your face, and sit in the early sunshine while the coffee is brewing: that is good camping.

Lunchtime

We had some interesting camps in Finland, following the usual pattern of looking for bathing places, churches, sports fields etc – anywhere public yet quiet, with short grass. We were hardly bothered by mosquitoes, and never by people. (The allemansrett is called jokamiehenoikeus in Finnish).

Noisy tractors in the morning.

The last evening before reaching Helsinki, we camped outside a school. It rained suddenly, surprisingly, and thunder rolled across the sky. Big heavy crows hopped around on the tin roof of the bike shed, alarmingly loud.

On the way in to Helsinki, the roads were all being rebuilt, and the cycle paths were freshly made just in time for us. We had a grand time in Helsinki. The sun came out and it stayed hot for days. We took the metro, saw the sights –  the white church, the red church, the harbour market, the trams. We took a short ferry trip to Suomenlinna, the sea fortress. Built in the C18th to protect against the Russians, Suomenlinna now is just an inhabited island, with museums and cafes, and hundreds and hundreds of picnickers.  Steve liked the big cannons, I liked all the flowers growing along the coast path; we both liked exploring the tunnels, which were maze-like, unlit and dripping with little stalactites.

After two sunny days in Helsinki, we were up early to catch the ferry – just three hours across the Gulf of Finland and into Estonia.

A final Finnish treat