Week Two

A good 6-7 hours sleep, despite the occasional rocking motion of the bed and the intermittent noise of ducks, and straight into the hostel's buffet breakfast. I always do quite well at buffets, due to an ability to eat nothing for two days and then catch up in one sitting (an old student survival trick). Then a quick wash, re-pack, and into Stockholm - glorious Stockholm, by the way: despite the ever-present gusts of wind, the sky is blue and the sun is seriously out.

First off, I check out the island I've been moored to (Skeppsholmen) and the adjacent one (Kastellholmen). Apparently the 22nd was Skeppsholm Day, and there were big discounts going at the various museums and galleries. Ah well, I'm not in town to look at those - and the Kastell wasn't up to much either.
Next stop is up to the Silja Line office, which is open today. With the help of my interrail ticket, a basic ticket to Turku is only 80 SEK (which is about a fiver): the basic ticket lets me crash out wherever I can find a space (in the cafés, restaurants, on deck etc.). I decide to splash out and go mental: I book a berth in an inner cabin of 4 beds with its own showerroom and toilet. This royal treatment comes in for only 105 SEK (¤7) which means it would be cheaper going back and fore between Finland and Sweden than staying in the Youth Hostel. The lady at the desk tells me that Monday is a more expensive day to travel!
Anyway, then into Stockholm proper - wonderful, wierd Stockholm, a city built on a string of islands between a giant inland lake and the Baltic. I've always liked it - it's much like Churchill described Vienna, but this particular elephant is just the only animal in a very large zoo. The whole thing is built to a grand scale, and is about the sole product of the brief but powerful Swedish Empire and the mindset that came with it.
I meander the shopping area for a while: tourist fare in Sweden is mostly the same junk as anywhere else, though I am briefly tempted by the Viking's World Tour T-shirts, and by the trolls. I will probably find better trolls in Norway. Also I notice that you can now buy replicas of the Moose Crossing roadsigns which have always amused me on past visits. Then I head up to the Royal Library and the park around it - someone had a lot of respect for books, clearly, then via the dull Conference Centre to the equally dull Concert Hall (and fruit/flower market - they have great cyclamen here). All around Stockholm are "expressgods" signs, which is an amusing and bizarre concept worth exploring. Actually, also all around Stockholm are anglers - apparently you don't need any kind of permit and the lake is restocked with salmon every year. Other odd things included a rather chilling puppet/marionette museum - oh, and the sun keeps coming out and being bright and warm. This would have been an excellent day to wear my supercool prescription shades (yes, it's that bright), but I left them in my rucksack. Incidentally, I also spotted a bus called Fred Hall, which is possibly a relation of Stuart (from It's A Bash Up). Oh - and there's a Lush shop in Stockholm Central Station and (on a similar note), having had minor problems stocking up on Fisherman's Friends at home, here they have them everywhere - at least 6 different types - in all the station shops and the supermarkets, normally in little trays by the tills.

Back to the sightseeing stuff, I cross a bridge to Kungsholmen to look at Kungsholm Church and then the Stadshuset - "City Hall", I suppose. It's quite magnificent and very funny (I laughed aloud): it's as if they've taken all the elements of St. Mark's in Venice and put them all in one building. There's the brickwork and colouring, and rows of statues two floors up, the colonnade of archways, the square tower, the steps leading into the water - there's even one of those daft statues perched, like St. Simon, on top of a pillar. I took lots of photos, attempting to capture the moment, then paid to climb the tower - against the better judgement of my vertigo. Excellent views of all Stockholm and those who have the legs for it can stand right at the edge and look straight down.

Back on terra firma, I finally cross to Gamla Stan, which everyone refers to as the Old Town. I don't know if Gamla Stan means "Old Town", or if it's just the name of the island it's built on. As an Old Town it's not that old: Stockholm was founded back in the 1200s, but most of the Old Town dates from far later (being grand buildings and wide streets - notably a church where a famous murder took place, and the huge Royal Palace: two sides face Gamla Stan, one faces the sea, the fourth faces the Riksdagshuset - all very symbolic. The royalty don't live there any more: they've moved out of the city altogether to Drottingen). The other half of Gamla Stan is the narrow alleys and excellent shops you'd expect.

Also, like most of Stockholm's islands it's very hilly: Stockholm (like Edinburgh, Lausane and Monte Carlo) has overcome this problem by layering: ie. there are buildings which have five floors on one side and 10 on the other.

Amsterdam and Kobenhavn are both basically land, criss-crossed by lots of rivers, docks and canals. Stockholm, on the other hand, is basically water dotted with a few islands. After wandering around the Riksdaghuset, I therefore decide that the only real way to see the city is from the water, and I take a two hour sight-seeing cruise.
When we go towards the centre of Stockholm, we go through a lock gate, which surprises me. It implies, as is obviously the case, that the water level in the lake is different from the sea. But why? Surely it couldn't have been before the lock was built: so why build a lock? The only reason I can think of is that it's there to stop the lake being tidal. The recorded soundtrack to the tour doesn't help, but it does boast of the water's cleanliness and hints that it might be okay to drink - so I guess it's freshwater. It also has a couple of beaches, within the limits of the city.
The soundtrack also provides some interesting facts and figures - Stockholm has 2m of Sweden's 9m people: it also has a fair whack of Sweden's 1.5m immigrant and immigrant-descended population. Since Sweden's birthrate is already low, and falling, it doesn't take much brain to work out that there soon won't be any Swedes left first in Stockholm and eventually in the rest of Sweden (possibly they will then rename the country). While a bizarre thought, this is substantiated by the almost total absence of prams, compared with Kobenhavn.
The city's layout dates from the 1600s, though most of the actual buildings are from the 1800s and 1900s, when the city was expanding. They also have something of a habit of tearing down large chunks of the city to make way for new stuff: this habit includes (apparently) much of the Old Town as recently as the 50s and 60s.
The tour ends, and I disembark: Stockholm is now paying the penalty for clear skies all day - ie. it's bloody freezing. I catch a bus into the Central Station, and then the T (Tunelban) out to the Silja terminal, where I wait with some trepidation for the boat.
Stockholm, which was already on 7/10 stays at 7/10. It almost gets an 8 but the climate (particularly the cold biting wind) knocks it back.

The terminal building rapidly fills, and then this huge white ship slips gracefully into port. After it disgorges one set of passengers, we (the next set) are allowed aboard. Inside, massive international service that it is, feels like my first foreign country. After Swedish and Finnish, the first foreign language they translate everything into is Russian. I guess the Russians must be getting out quite frequently, then, and visiting Stockholm to check out a Western European capital. They probably leave thinking that capitalism is just too expensive after all. Across the rest of the boat, I don't hear a single spoken word of English, but quite a bit of Russian (from what I can tell). Also, in the Duty Free shop (which was maniacally expensive), most of the UK cigarette brands are gone: not just Silk Cut, but B&H and the others. In fact we're down to the international standards - Marlboro, Lucky Strike, Camel, Dunhill and a whole bunch which I don't recognise. Bizarrely they were also selling Rolos (called Rollos), which were actuall Toffos (just to confuse things). Presumably these plucky little sweets are finally fighting back against the likes of Reisen and Werther's Original. Oddly, they were also selling a product called MacKaviar which seemed to be caviar in a (tartan) tube. Despite the expense, I bought a couple of cans and some munchies, since the cafés and restaurants are a little on the vertical side (as are the saunas, cinema, swimming pool, casino and bars).

My 4-berthed cabin actually turns out to have only one other occupant - a Norwegian called Remi, who owns/runs a caravan park. He's driving to Latvia to get drunk and pick up lots of cheap beer to sell (presumably illegally) in Norway. He missed his ferry to Tallinn, so this was a last-minute booking, otherwise I'd have had the entire cabin (inluding the toilet/shower) to myself. Inside, instead of a window (we're deep inside the ship) there is a large mirror, made up to look like a window - it even has curtains.
I watched Stockholm disappear behind us as we chugged almost silently into the night: it takes ages for that to happen on a boat, especially when you've high up (I'm on Deck 9), because no scenery or stuff gets in the way. Also, it seems that the ferries travel in convoys - we leave just after a Viking Line vessel and follow literally in its wake.
Also, there are hundreds of little rocky islets all the way out from Stockholm - many of them populated, to judge from the lights: it must have been hell to attack from the sea if you didn't have a pilot with local knowledge. Even if you didn't trash your fleet, you might never have found the city. Shades of Imrryr.
When I went out on deck for a cigarette two hours later, we were still passing little islands.

In order to effect a rapid turnaround, Silja Line start cleaning the cabins ages before the ship docks. As a result, they buzz everyone with an unsociable alarm call at about half-six (ie. half-five Stockholm time). Ah well - I got up, had a shower, and went up to one of the upper decks to see what Finland looks like.
Actually, it looked really good. We were weaving our way through a million tiny islands, all totally covered in dark green conifers, and at that time in the morning (dawn), there was a rolling mist rising off the water. It was also totally silent, which was kind of eerie. I took some photos (I'm a tourist, after all), then went back to the cabin and woke Remi, who was dead to the world. Then I go back up on deck and watch as we pull into Turku and dock - it all happens with a surprising number of thick ropes and brute strength - the wonders of technology, huh?

We docked at about 8.00am local time and, without any FinnMarks (Markka), I was somewhat relieved to discover there was a regular (ie. free) train into Turku Centre. Unfortunately, I didn't have any change for the locker either and Turku doesn't have any kind of tourist infrastructure. Therefore, there was no bureau de change at the station. So I lugged the rucksack all the way into town (a mile?), got some money, lugged it back and stowed it and then went back into town where I promptly discovered that I'd mislaid my gloves somewhere. Damn.

There was a girl at the tourist info office who spoke enough English to give me the right language map and tell me where there were internet cafés in town.
Turku is Abo in Swedish, and all the public signs are in both Finnish and Swedish, so I guess there's a large non-Finnish population here. Abo, incidentally, seems to come from the Latin Aboa - haven't figured out if that's classical Latin (what were they doing up here?) or medieval.
In the meantime, there's a slightly more pressing matter, and that's the temperature - or rather lack of it. Even at 10.30 in the morning, there is frost on the grass and the cars. This doesn't seem to have stopped a boys' and girl's football team(s) from practicing in one of the parks, though they're all wearing at least six or seven layers and not moving very fast. There's also an openair swimming pool in the same park, which kind of implies that it does get warmer. I am bitterly missing my gloves.
Next up the cathedral - Turku is the Uppsala of Finland: it's cathedral is the most historically significant in the country, they both suffered their respective cities' Great Fires (yes, Turku had one - 1827), and they've both de-Gothicised the cathedrals to make them look more medieval.
Actually, Turku cathedral isn't bad at all - apart from the fact that the rain can't get in, it looks and feels a medieval cathedral. It's at the centre of an older quarter - again, not that old (probably due to the fire) which seems to be mostly university buildings and includes the Sibelius Museum: Sibelius was born in Hampeenlinna, now a suburb if Turku. I go inside and wander around, principally to annoy my father, and am startled to discover a whole feature on Dollar (including exhibits, photos of the school/burn/castle, etc.). Apparently researchers from here did some kind of sound-recording project, partially in Dollar, back in 1975.

Anyway, checking out other tourist attractions reveals that there is a Moominland just outside Turku. Unfortunately, it closed for the season back in August, which is kind of disappointing, otherwise that would have been a must (as would buying things there). A more realistic goal is the castle which, annoyingly, is right back at the Silja Line terminal: no matter - the walk was surely good for me, and the sun came out (it is bright enough to finally wear my shades without walking into things). It is also less cold now (though not less-cold enough for me to remove my jumper).

The walk along the river is very pleasant - there are big old houses with trees and cobbles to start with, and it gradually gets more industrial and turns into a fully working docks. There are private boats all the length of the river - it seems the town has boating fever (for which I didn't get an innoculation, on account of having natural immunity): there's even a Yachting Brokerage shop. And then, almost at the coast, there's the castle which is in its own gardens. And this is more like what a castle should be - it's at least partially stonework and has a defensive layout designed against land attack: thick walls, winding courtyardsm etc. Obviously built by people who knew what a castle was for, rather than just as a place to put troops (or crown jewels).

One final thought - the new interrail logbooks (now separate from the ticket, which is getting pretty flimsy, like my passport) only have enough space for 48 journeys. This is already my 15th, and I've only been travelling for 6 days: I started late, so I actually wasted a couple of days. But even so, at this rate I'll hit 72 journeys before the ticket expires, and 80 on the next ticket ! I'm sure something will work out, though - last time out, I got a refill logbook in Paris.

After an intermittent night's sleep (I find it more difficult to sleep in a stationary train, and this one stopped for a long while at Pieksämäki - brief memories of Zagreb, for those who know that story), I wake up in North Karelia which, from the train at least, seems to defy what I wrote yesterday - it seems very flat. We pull into Joensuu, regional capital and about the size of Inverness (and just as much to do). My next train south is in two and a half hours, so I dump my rucksack in a locker and set out for a quick walking tour. The clouds have yet to reach here, but despite that it is horribly cold. I cross the river, Pielisjoki, and pop into the Carelicum, a Karelia Centre, which tells me everything I want to know.

It seems that Joensuu is mainly a base from which to take part in all the activities which the area is perfect for - boating, angling, hiking and so on. The largest forest in Europe is here, as are the largest bear and wolf populations (super).
I do a quick round of the major buildings - the town hall and some churches - being this close to Russia (about as close as you can get without actually going there), a lot of the population is Orthodox and the best building in town is the little Orthodox chapel, pretty much in the middle of a housing estate. Apparently there's also a Byzantine-style seminary, but I don't bother looking for it: I should see enough of that sort of thing in Byzantium. I potter around the river and lake shore, before catching my train. It wends its way through endless forests and vast lakes, and keeps stopping in places with five or six houses (our best stop was just a strip of tarmac, which a road ran past: no settlement in sight at all - just trees). The houses in Karelia, by the way, are all either timber or timber-clad, and are uniformly reddish-brown with white framework. Also, out here, there's none of that Swedish-Finnish nonsense: almost everything is just in Finnish (Suomea, I think, though that might be the accusitive).
Traveller's Tip: If you see a sign "PARIPANKKI", don't worry - it sounds smutty, but it's a bank (pankki): you can probably get a credit card from them. Just as odd, there's also a "PIKA-PULLA", which sounds like something you normally have to pay for.

I get out at Parikkala (stress on the second syllable) and take a bus from the station to Savonlinna (stress on the first), which is the main reason I'm on this side of Finland. The bus is free (to me), since it's considered part of the train journey, and if the train route was good then this leg is double-good. The road really is picking its way between lakes and along causeways pretty much all the way. Some interesting-looking stops as well - Punkaharju, for example - and others which are almost nothing. As far as administrative districts go, I cross over the border from Karelia (or Carelia, or Karjala, or whatever) and am in Etela-Savo and before I know it I'm in Savonlinna. And that's almost true: I was so busy thinking Shit - I may not have given myself enough time to see Savonlinna, that I was easily the last off the bus.
My original plan had been to travel on to Pieksämäki by bus that afternoon, but I immediately headed to Tourist Information to try and work out what my options are: Savonlinna is full of great bulidings, and the castle (of course), and magnificent lakeside views. Unfortunately, it turns out that all the budget accommodation closed in August at the end of the tourist season, as indeed did many of the cool-sounding things - lake cruises and ferries, for example. I head off into the old town (you guessed it - not very old, but very pretty), along one of the lake shores (Savonlinna is built at the meeting point of two large lakes, on several islands), and emerge opposite the famous castle. And it's quite definitely genuine, not something artificial they've knocked up for the opera festival.

My way is blocked by a jetty which ends in a barrier (then water): the castle - Olavinlinna - is on an island, so I stood around waiting for a ferry to appear. But no - there's a swinging pontoon bridge instead (I kid you not),which was out the way to let a big ship through. Onto the island or rather into the castle, since there doesn't seem to be any of the island which isn't castle. 30FM to get in, but I figure it's worth it - it includes a one hour compulsory tour. Bizarrely my particular tour is with two Swiss Germans and a whole class full of Finnish kids (it's an English lesson, since the tour is in English, rather than a history lesson).

The castle is pretty good (the tour itself is weak, but we get to wander around afterwards on our own). In fact, this castle is the best yet - real defensive works: thick walls, five towers (only three remaining), angled inner courtyards, the works. It even changed hands a couple of times among Sweden, Novgorod, Muscovy, Russia and Finland (delete as applicable).

Back out and through the town centre to the casino and the north side, where there are brilliant views over the water and a couple of still-forested small islands which you can wander round to get a feel of what the rest of Karelia's like. Then up and onto the road bridge for a few more photos (used almost a whole film in Savonlinna). The whole rest of the town is full of good buildings as well. In fact, I end up not only missing the last bus out to Pieksämäki, and the last train out (to anywhere), but I also forget to stop and eat anything. It briefly looked as if I might have to find out exactly how non-budget the budget accommodation was - and, frankly, in a place as classily upmarket as Savonlinna, I hated to imagine.
Thankfully, though, I worked out a route back exactly the way I'd come in. As I left, I thought that - that is exactly what Bayreuth should have been: a sort of upper-market version of Stratford. I wouldn't live there, but I'd definitely recommend anyone with money to come here for a week during tourist season. Score? Well, I'd get bored here fairly quickly but it's still great, so 5/10

Poor old Joensuu (it's pronounced Yo'n'Sue) gets 2/10, but Parikalla (which I return to after Savonlinna) gets 1/10 since I discovered the hard way that there's absolutely nothing to do there after dark for two hours. Had a good sunset across the lake, but that didn't really make up for it.
Because of my extra time in Savonlinna, I (also) have no night-train options except Turku, which I've already been to. Thankfully, all the night trains stopover at Pieksämäki between 01.30 and 03.00 in the morning, so I was able to hop off on and onto another - it turns out I'm going to Helsinki tomorrow.

Up at 6.50, I am awakened by a stream of wet commuters who take little more than 20 seconds to half-fill a carrage previously occupied by four. And, as mentioned, wet. Yes, it's raining. And obviously the toilet and handbasin facilities are suddenly in almost constant use. This gave me the chance, as we passed through the various commuter stations, to reflect on the advantages of Finnish over Swedish: the quaint suburb of Tikkurila, for example, becomes Dickursby in Swedish. And Oulunkylä becomes Äggelby.
Traveller's Tip: on arriving at Helsinki Station, go down into the big shopping mall underneath and buy a tourist day ticket from the bus/tram operator HKL/HST (25FM) - it'll take you anywhere.
I didn't do this, but walked to the Youth Hostel - which is modern, and more like a downmarket hotel. [En route, I noticed that Helsinki has a much more varied population than anywhere else in Finland - more asiatic and negroid faces, as well as far more of the heavier facial features which I tend to think of as Russian. Also in Helsinki, a lot of the very pale translucent Finns wear very dark, very stark make-up, which meakes them like marionette/Pierrot figures and is a most odd effect.] After checking into the Youth Hostel, I started my tram and walking tour. First off the Orthodox (Uspensky) Cathedral - this is the first place I've ever been, I think, which has enough of an Orthodox population to warrant a cathedral: odd that it's so far north, when I associate Orthodox populations with the east and south-east (of Europe, that is). Then to the bustling market, right at the old harbour, where small boats still moor and sell fish directly to consumers, and the old market building (Gamla Saluhallen, so I guess Gamla Stan is Old Town after all - yes, everything here is in Swedish and Finnish as well). The building is still all stalls, but now includes (eg.) a sushi bar. The most interesting stuff for sale in the market is handmade wooden . . . things: various ornate, carved . . . things - some with a discernible purpose, and others less so. There's also a great range of furs for sale - whole furs, hats, moccasins, gloves, etc. And great lengths of intricate, brightly-coloured materials in the kind of pattern which, like tartan, imply that they mean something.

Back onto the tourist tram and up to the north side of town to take in the Olympic Stadium (now a youth hostel, apparently!), the opera house (Part Deco, Part Bauhaus - that's probably a double pun, thinking of the Finnish composer) and the Sibelius Monument. It's made up of organ pipes and stands on three legs, presumably to mark his famous Third ("Organ") Symphony (?). Then, again courtesy of the tourist tram, back into the centre where Tourist Information give me a list of Internet Cafés in the city. I find a fairly cool one in the centre, just back from the fashionable shopping street of Aleksanterinkatu, where I sit through the evening listening to live music and drinking mocha and beer, updating my website. Mind you, it wasn't cheap.

Finally, back into the night, taking a tram to the Youth Hostel where I meet my roommates Taisei (spelling?) from Japan, at the end of a one month trip round the former Soviet Union and Josh from Canada, four and a half months into a six-month tour of all Europe except the former Soviet Union (he only has Norway, the UK and Eire to go). We swap notes on places to stay, trains to catch and things to see, and we all agree that Finland is the most expensive country yet.
I reflect that, funnily, travelling by tram for most of the day has destroyed my bearings: on foot you quickly build up an internal map of where places are in relation to each other and how far apart they are. I've been studying some of the free maps which I seem to have collected of Helsinki and trying to draw a plan in my head, but it's not there yet.
Helsinki - overall fairly disappointing, but pleasant enough: there are only so many pastel-painted neoclassical cuboid buildings any one person can take. I'd bveen expecting better, but I think it's trying too hard to be Stockholm, so 3/10: it's just a place (with shops).

Up early for a painfully hot Finnish sauna - hey-ho: they must be good for me: they certainly do something to/for my lungs. The only downside was being surrounded by naked, burly Russian seamen. Then I opt for the buffet breakfast, despite its 29FIM pricetag. It turns out they've had a cancellation, so I can stay here a second night - that will give me time to do Tampere and Tallinn instead of having to choose. First off, I check the Tallinn ferries: I can get a hydrofoil there and back for 170FIM (tempting) or a regular ferry for a variable cost depending on which sailings I take. I decide to postpone Tallinn until tomorrow (I can get an early boat and get a full day there - downside, it's be Saturday).
At least my tour round the various ferry terminals has finally got a picture of Helsinki in my head. It's a triangle, with the point facing downwards and the station is in the middle, also facing downwards. Aleksanterinkatu and then the Esplanade and Esplanade Park both run east-west, to the south of the station, and Mannheimintie is just to the west, running SE-NW. The Senate Square and Cathedral lie almost exactly due east of the station.

I catch the train northwards: that buffet has made me drowsy, and I snooze through to Tampere. The train is well-impressive: my first double-decker Finnish train, and I'm on the upper deck so there are excellent views - of trees, mostly. There's a small flex shower in the toilets, there are free luggage lockers, and coffee and soft drinks machines in every carriage. There are even compartments for using mobile phones (so as not to disturb other passengers, you would like to think - everyone in Finland is permanently on a mobile phone), and there are play areas of kids. Incidentally VR Oy (the railway company) also have at least one complete children's play-carriage: half of it is a big play pen with a slide and stuff (I saw it in Turku station and almost boarded).

And so into Tampere which is (immediately obviously) more industrial than the more decorative Helsinki and Turku. Despite this they have the single-sheet multiple-language-on-back tourist maps. Let's see - at 200,000 it's a bit smaller than Aberdeen; it's a lakeside town/city (or rather it's between two lakes, with a river connecting them); it was founded in 1779. The Industrial Revolution came to (this part of) Finland thanks to one James Finlayson. His cotton mill became huge - a vast and sprawling red-brick and whitewash affair in the true Northwest of England tradition (despite him being a Scot). Nowadays, rather than just pulling them down or letting them fall apart, they're using the buildings for small businesses, museums, shops, restaurants and the odd cinema.

I cross the river from the Tourist Information place and end up in a large market of stalls, where most of the stallholderes seem to be selling hundreds of different types and preparations of seafood. North of these is the Keskustori square, with an old church, the old town hall and some okay 19th century buildings. Much of the rest of Tampere is unfortunately drab and industrial (actually a refreshing change), but they also have quite a bit of neat modern architecture. Right at the shore of Näsijärvi (the northern lake) there's an amusement park with a pretty good roller coaster and a 120m high tower (400 feet?) - it has a lift that goes at 6m/s. There are some fantastic views from the top, out across the lakes, and a revolving restaurant at the top.
From there, I crossed to the other lake shore, and Pyynikki forest park - dull, as only a forest park can be. In the distance I spot one of the large watertowers which dot this area - presumably (since this is the land of lakes, and they're not exactly short of the stuff) they're only there to generate water pressure (since this is the land of no hills)

I passed Alexander's Church and was then magically drawn into Moominvalley, which is downstairs in an excellent modern building (a library, I think). The Moomin books are great - they're the closest thing we have to Pooh, except Pooh (real Pooh, not Disney Pooh - for much of which you can drpo the "h") and perhaps Asterix. I ended up spending an hour there, which was longer than expected, but at least the gift shop was closed by the time I left - I'd earlier noticed Moomin ties for £25 each. Unfortunately, the sky was now chucking (quite painfully) hailstones at me and the temperature, which had been hovering around 8-9 with occasional peaks of 11-12) was plummeting. In the fading daylight and inclement conditions, I circled round a trio of churchs (the Orthodox - neo-Byzantine; the Kaleva - modern; the Cathedral - traditional) and the huge and white Tampere Hall (another well-designed modern building). The red cross collectors who had been swarming through Tampere as they had through Helsinki yesterday, also gave up in the hail (they must have given half the schools the day off, since the collectors all seemed to be schoolchildren).
Finally I get back to the station, where all the trains were held up and running late for some reason, which probably made sense in Finnish. Funny thing about Finnish - it uses a lot off the same inflections and patterns as Scots do when speaking English: so a fair amount of the time I find myself trying to listen harder to things, only to discover that they're in Foreign. There was a football match on the radio yesterday and it was particularly bad, because many of the words in the commentary aree the same (eg. "offside") - at several points I could have sworn I was listening to Radio Scotland. Size is another thing we have in common with Finland - there's a wide spread here, with lots of short people and lots of tall people - not many average people. Disconcertingly, at least 15% of the women are taller than I am and an equivalent percentage of the men tower high above me in the 6'2 to 6'6 bracket.
Traveller's Tip: "Moy-moy" seems to mean goodbye in some language that they speak here.
I also saw a sticker on a bin in Tampere which said, in English, "The only good Fascist is a Dead One". I'd like to think that the irony was deliberate, but sadly I doubt it.
Overall, Tampere - not very pretty and not very old, but kind of okay in a post-industrial way, so it gets 4/10 for trying.

Eventually I get back to Helsinki, where it is black and the temperature is 4 degrees and falling. At the youth hostel they thankfully take payment by credit card (I'm almost out of Markka), and just the one roommate tonight - an Aussie called Tom, who's been working in the UK. He did a grand tour of southern Europe last year, and is doing northern Europe this year.

A day of great highs and great lows, today. First off, let me make it clear than any good things I previously said about Silja Line due to their cheap fare from Stockholm to Turku, I now retract. After an early rise at about 6.00, I shower, pack, stow the rucksack and head down to the terminals. My carefully selected Linda Line, with their neat, fast, cheap hydrofoils are having technical problems and have cancelled their early morning sailing (foiling?). They hope to be running later today, but they advise that I might have time to catch the Silja line early ship. Silja (the bastards) with their manky old Seventies' SuperSeaCat and their dodgy exchange "rates" and their rip-off shops, promptly charge me £25 one-way/£40 return, more than triple the overnight Stockholm-Turku route (!) and more than double Linda Line. I buy a single, on the basis that a single back with Linda Line will still work out cheaper, and I definitely want to travel by hydrofoil if at all possible.
And so onto the ferry, where Silja mysteriously manage far more reasonable tax-free prices than my last trip with them. And after a couple of hours, the boat chugs into Tallinn Harbour after avoiding (as with every city in the Baltic so far) all the little islands off the shore. Old Tallinn is perched on a hill looking down across the water, so you get good views of the city walls, towers and spires as you approach from the sea. For the first time since travelling down at Schiphol, I go through passport control and customs and, at last, get a stamp in my passport. I remember being disappointed back in 1987 that 50% of the European border controls had effectively stopped bothering. Now they all have. But not good old ex-Soviet, non-EU Estonia. Two very stern and staunch ladies in green uniforms scrutinised everyone coming through and both managed to radiate identical expressions - as if they'd just been given a week to live. Something along the lines of "Welcome to Estonia: you may want to be here, but we certainly don't."
Straight after the boat had been a currency exchange place, offering about 23 Estonian Kroner to the pound. Hardened and suspicious of Silja, I ignore it: this turns out to be the right move since, down two escalators, there's a place offering me 24.30.

The port opens onto rubble - they seem to be in the middle of major roadworks and, while they upgrade, they haven't bothered providing any alternatives for pedestrian traffic. And so I, and every other passenger who decides to walk to 1km into town, struggle our way across a very bleak post-industrial landscape. On the subject of terrain, meanwhile, I'm staggeringly disappointed at how badly my best-of-British Reeboks are holding up to serious trudging with weight, in perpetually changing wet and dry: the treads are already beginning to peel at the toe, and that normally takes at least six months at home. I was hoping for at least three months wear out in the field (for £45 I should hope so).
It's about half-nine in the morning and, like Finland, opening times seems to be about 10.00 till 8.00pm. I climb (best word, trust me) the cobbled and winding streets (at last! Medieval!) to the fiarly central Raekoja Plats (me and a thousand other tourists here for the day - Tallinn is like Prague: a great secret destination, which everyone knows about). I have a drink in a café and wait for Tourist Information to open, increasing my non-existent knowledge of Tallinn. The city centre is pretty much circular, with the old town to the north (Vanalinn, on a defensible hill and still at least 60% surrounded by the old city wall and towers) and the new town to the south (Südalinn). The rail and bus stations are directly to the north and the port ("sadama", similar to the Finnish "satama") is directly to the north-east. A little way out to the east is a big park with the presidential palace and a duck pond which is marked on all the tourist maps (must be one hell of a duck pond, but I didn't get out that far). At the very top of the Old Town is Toompea - the fortified inner heart of the Old Town - and that was where I started.

As well as a number of worthy buildings (the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Toompea Castle itself, a few other churches), the city walls and towers are largely intact and there are some spectacular viewpoints to be had. A funny thing about Tallinn - I can't work out if it's falling down or not. There are some awesome buildings which are just derelict shells (there awas a pale yellow, multi-levelled one with a roof garden and balcony which I was particularly tempted by), and there are others which are surrounded by scaffolding and obviously have a lot of work going on. Whichever it is, I'm quite uplifted by Tallinn - Finland was getting very same-y (no pun intended).
As the morning wears on, the Old Town starts to come alive: buildings which I had mistaken for . . . well, buildings, magically turn out to be shops: but shops with that traditional style (normal doors and windows). The place also starts filling with people - local people, as well as the hordes of tourists. Interestingly, as with Kobenhavn, the majority of the locals favour leather jackets. In Sweden and Finland there are a lot, but on balance the vote seems to go with the modern artificial fabrics, particularly of the more expensive kind (there are a lot of Berghaus, for example). Another interesting fashion statement is the high number of Rupert Bear trousers (ie. wide, pale plaid).

I find an internet place, which is the wierdest of all: from the outside it looked like a residential block and possibly partially still is. It was like something out of a Kieslowski film - up an unlit stairwell to a pale-walled corridor. There was a young lad (14/15) sitting in the second room along: "You want use Internet?" and so I do, in a featureless room, to the background strains of mixed western and presumably Estonian music.
After that into the new town, which is mostly concrete and wide squares and an infinite number of kioski which are surprising more for their quantity than for anything they were selling (the usual fare, including affordable cigarettes). Despite the wide boulevards, they park on the pavements here - I mean, officially. The parking spaces are marked up in white paint lines, as per normal, but the lines are half on the road and half on the pavement. I find a place which does one-hour film processing at EEK165, which is about £7 and therefore a damn site cheaper than anywhere else in Scandinavia. While waiting, I have a couple of drinks (Mr. Litherland's suggested Vana Tallinn is okay but better in coffee than on its own: and tip for the day - avoid their fizzy beverage Linnuse Kali, which is pretty revolting) and shopped for food provisions: tonight I should be catching the sleeper right up north, to cross over Sweden and Norway the next day and hopefully come out at Narvik on the coast. I figure I'm much cheaper carrying a bag of Estonian provisions than buying much there. I collect my photos and inspect them over an average mocha and a rather good ham omelette.

Back into the old town of Tallinn where (together with a sizeable population of street cats) they have a street which they've left as near-rubble as a monument to the single day when the Soviets nearly bombed the city flat as they advanced against the Nazis. Curious because, clearly, it must have been kept that way during the Soviet Era as well, when it possibly had a different set of resonances.
After wandering around the outside of the city walls, I make my way back to the port to find Linda Line's Tallinn terminal. Well, unlike the Silja (and others) terminals which have presumably been built pretty much by the shipping companies in collaboration with the port authorities, Linda LIne is based in the old Linnahall which clearly adates from the Soviet Era. Also incorporating the heliport, it's one of those massively impressive yet functionally pointless constructions: great waves of steps (taking you so high that the wind is a serious problem), rows of lights which are now clearly too expensive to turn on, etc. Quite magnificent. Even better - my initial approachj is across a railway line, following some old grandmother with a shopping trolley - this whole area is like something The Professionals would have used for chase scenes. Clambering through it makes me feel very eastern bloc.
I finally got to Linda Line - yes they were still having problems, but they were running a special late service (presumably so as not to leave half their passengers stranded), though the crossing might be rough. Excellent, I thought as I bought my ticket - I get to go in a hydrofoil! Possibly on a rough crossing!

Observant readers may already have twigged that, taking a late crossing meant that I would miss the night train north, but I only realised that back in Tallinn, when it was too late to do anything about it.
Bummer.
Especially since I didn't have any accomodation booked, and it was a Saturday night, and I wasn't going to get into Helsinki until late.
At least I got to experience some of Tallinn's nightlife, or evening life. Tallinn has quite a lot of girls who, while not exactly attractive, are certainly cute, so I was quite looking forward to checking out a couple of strip clubs. Unfortunately, they clearly have a policy against employing the cute ones (or, I'm led to believe, all the cute ones end up working in Amsterdam for better money). The same applies, incidentally, to the local pornographic magazines.
Finally, with some time to kill, I spend a while watching 12-15 year old ice skaters practicing. This isn't (quite) as pervy as it sounds: the local ice rink is the only other facility in the massive Linnahall apart from Linda Line. What was surprising is that they were all good, and had obviously been doing it for years.

Only back at Linda Line's terminal did I start to worry about things like - was there another night-train I could catch (Thomas Cook was with my rucksack, so I couldn't check)? And, if not, where was I going to sleep tonight? Such thoughts were soon pushed froim my mind, however, when we all boarded the good ship Laura and the journey started. "We all", by the way, extends not only to the passengers but also to a remarkable number of crates of beer, wine, and so on, which kind of demonstrates what most Finns used these day trips for. Oh, and there were a fair number of passengers who'd obviously been partaking of the their stocks well before the journey back actually got under way (which I think should definitely be "under weigh", especially when I'm talking about a boat).
Well . . .
I've been in some pretty bad turbulence in my time - the winter flights landing at Inverness were known for it - but wow! Up and down, tilting, huge waves crashing against the windows - and because we were so low (compared with the SeaCat this morning), we seemed to be travelling at an incredible speed, easily overtaking the other traffic. There were rails suspended from the ceiling, which the stewardess clung onto as she made her way along the aisles (offering drinks (!!)), and which the passengers tried to emulate from time to time - so I gather they have rough crossings on a fairly regular basis. Added to this, someone threw up after twenty minutes, which helped.
I don't know what my stomache thought of the trip, but the rest of me thought it was fucking brilliant. I heartily recommend it to anyone - and go for a rough weather crossing if you can.
The journey only took about 80 minutes, and the last 20 of that was spent going at snails' pace because of the speed restrictions (and obstacles/islands, to be fair) on the approach to Helsinki. Into Helsinki, through passport and customs control, and a dash back to the youth hostel where I've left my rucksack and timetable book. But all in vain: I've comfortably missed the last night train out of the capital.
The girl at the youth hostel phones round for me, but she doesn't hold out much hope - after all, it's Saturday night. On the 5th or 6th attempt, though, she comes up with a small hotel - some way out from the centre - with a couple of rooms free. Get them to hold one for me, I decide, and she marks where the hotel is on a map. It takes me, luggage and all, over an hour to get there (in part due to it not being quite where the youth hostel girl said it was), but then into a tiny room (but my own!), wash my hair, and finally to sleep at about 3 am.

Overall, today was one of the worst and one of the best days - each crisis was a knock: ferry out being cancelled, then Silja Line ripping me off for the ticket price, then my Savonlinna pictures being spoiled, then missing my connection north and finally trudging through the suburbs of Helsinki in the early hours. But set against that Tallinn was a great place (7/10), and I got my photos developed, and the hydrofoil journey was remarkable for so many reasons.
So a day I'll remember for a while, which I guess is what travelling's all about.

By dint of the events of yesterday, I wake up in a hotel room in Helsinki - which is no bad thing. Without the somewhat regimented atmosphere of youth hostels, I sleep until half-ten (quite reasonable for a Sunday, I thought). I'm somewhat disappointed with myself for getting so down at points through yesterday, over having nowhere to sleep and stuff like that. I need to get a lot more laid back again, which is supposed to be one of the reasons for chucking the job and so on: I keep making plans and then getting frustrated when they don't work out - I have stop that. Anyway, I repacked my rucksack and finally leave the hotel at 11.45. Most of the public transport network in Helsinki is run by HSK, and their tickets are transferrable within one hour. Which means a 10FIM fare gets me from the hotel to the station (to dump my rucksack), then down to the docks, and finally onto a ferry across to Suomenlinna - a fortress spread across six islands, which straddles the mouth of Helsinki harbour. It's pretty impressive, if only from a scale point of view, on account of it being vast and having multiple firing angles in virtually every direction. In the literature, they like to call it the Gibraltar of the North: in Swedish, they like to call it Sveaborg.

I potter around for a couple of hours (there's only so many fortifications you can take, even if they are UNESCO certified) and then return to Helsinki where the market is beginning to close. Today, the Sunday market, has almost no meat, fish or fruit but a much improved selection of wooden things and toy reindeer: yes, it seems Sunday Market is Tourist Market. Me? I go and drink coffee insterad and then update the website, back in the Meteori Café. Then finally to the station where the station bar is selling cheap "Happy Hour" pints at the equivalent of £3.50, and the Departures Board is clickering every few seconds - changing all the destination names between Finnish and Swedish. Yes, I'm definitely in Finland.

I have a couple of options for leaving Finland in the direction of the Arctic Circle, which I want to cross. I can either go really far up in Finland, and then catch a bus into Norway. Or I can go up to the Swedish border and then go north through Sweden and Norway instead. The first option is briefly tempting, but really only the idea of going to Inari: I'm far too influenced by films, in this case a peculiar little German film about trains. "Inari", however, sounds too much like a message from the Rain God; and that way turns into long-distance buses (which I have to pay for) quite quickly; and there isn't much in the way of settlements either. So round the top of the Gulf of Bothnia is the way to go.
I go and hang out at the station, to be sure I don't miss the train (again): there I can listen to a really good string trio (ages c. 8&11&15) who are presuambly playing here because it's too cold of the South Americans and their pipes. I can also have a closer look at the actual trains: many of the older locomotives have "MADE IN USSR" plates on the side (yes, in English); the tilting high-speed train service is called "Pendolino", possibly made up or just possibly from the same root as "pendulum". Also the station (like most of the Nordic countries, including Estonia) is full of places you can buy pizza (by the slice), kebab (or kebap), and/or ice cream: the unholy trio that seem to make up the staple diet of the Scandinavian peoples - with a lot of help from "GB Glaces", which is Wall's up here.

Frankly, I'm as bored of this background crap as you are, and it's a relief when they start building the train (at around 21.00): the first carriages have containers and cars on them, and are already loaded. According to the signs on the carriages. this is the "Santa Claus Express", obviously a marketing gimmick - oh, if only they knew:
"Mummy, mummy, I want to see a reindeer."
"It's just behind your Brussels Sprouts, dear."
Eventually the passenger carriages arrive and we board - it starts busy and gets busier: presumably the train is full of people who have spent the weekend in Helsinki. In fact, considering the (very) drunken state of many of them and the crates of beer which are brought on as luggage, these are people who spent the weekend in Tallinn. One of the revellers wears a walkman, and has the volume up very loud - a brief fight about this breaks out, turns into a scuffle, and then turns into a disagreement as they run out of energy. The music from the walkman continues through the night - his batteries just will not run out.