My winter holiday

In Kajaani, as in east and the Northern of Finland, the winter holidays took place from 6 to 12 March 2017. For the Southern of Finland, the winter holidays were from 20 to 24 February 2017 and for the central of Finland were from 27 February to 3 March.

I left during these holidays with 3 friends: Katharina, she's German, and two Chypriots: Krini and Styliana. We had organized a travel to visit the South of Finland. Here is our journey:

On Friday, March 3rd, 2017, we left Kajaani by train, with the company VR, to go to Savonlinna. After more than 8 hours of train we arrived in the city. We were lucky to have during our stay, a beautiful sun, what has us allowed to take magnificent photos of the city as well as saint Olaf's castle.

Olaf's castle or olavinlinna is a castle built in the XVth century on a rock in the middle of a lake. This fortress was built with the aim of protecting the region of Savonie (also called the region of lakes) and to control the unstable border between the kingdom of Sweden and Russia. It was restored in the XIXth further to a fire which had ravaged the building. To discover the inside of the castle, we followed a guided tour which lasted approximately one hour. But unfortunately we were not able to visit the completeness of the castle because all the parts of the fortress were not opened...

On Saturday, March 4th, having visited olavinlinna, we took a bus to go to Helsinki to spend a few days there. On the agenda: a day in a coastal city, a journey to Estonia and to finish, naturally, visit of the capital of Finland!

On Sunday, March 5th, we left visiting a coastal city situated in the east of Helsinki. After 1 hour of bus we arrived at Porvoo. This charming town is composed of numerous wooden colored houses.

We went to have a walk on the ice river of Porvoo, I really liked this moment, to walk next to boats, observed the beauty of the landscape… Many people came as us to walk on the ice river, some cycled, other one to walk with their dog or still went cross-country skiing!

On Monday, March 6th, we took the Ferry at 7:30 am to go to visit the capital of Estonia: Tallinn. After 2 hours of ferry and some photos of the frozen sea by leaving from Helsinki, we arrived at destination.

We visited the old town of Tallinn as well as some monuments: Cathedral Alexandre Nevski, Place of the city hall, City hall, Toompea, Church St Nicholas', Big tower Marguerite...

 We enjoyed typical specialities of Estonia: 

→ Piggy meat jelly with warm potatoes and mustard
→ Traditional pork roast with oven potatoes, sauerkraut, and mustard

And we drank some Estonian lemonade, which has an apple taste, it's really very good.

The next two days we crossed them to visit the Finnish capital. We saw in Helsinki:

Church Temppeliaukio, Place of the Senate, Cathedral Ouspenski, national Marketplace of Helsinki, Museum of Finland, Lutheran Cathedral of Helsinki, Monument Sibelius, Olympic stadium of Helsinki, museum of arts…

 

There is always some thing to be seen and to be made in Helsinki, I adored this city! :)

On Wednesday, March 8th we went by bus to Turku, it's a maritime city situated in the southwest of the country and it's also the old capital of Finland. We visited the medieval castle of the city dating XIV Century, it's situated on one of the banks of the river Aura. It's a big and beautiful castle, with at the end a very interesting historic museum.

I also visited other monuments among which in particular the cathedral of Turku, it's one of more beautiful cathedrals than I saw in my life due to its architecture, its ornaments, its immense organ …what makes it unique. If you go one day to Turku, it's really a monument to be seen!

After these few days crossed in the South of Finland and in Estonia, we returned by train to Kajaani.