| FINLAND Our 2004 summer holiday
I tried to write this page in English...
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After a jouney to Northern Germany we slept one night in Lübeck. | |
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The next day we embarked on the GTS Finnjet in Rostock | |
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The Finnjet is a ferry-icebreaker and is powered by gasturbines - total about 100.000 horsepower | |
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100.000 HP at work. The German city of Rostock
disapeared very fast... The journey to Helsinki Finland is about 30 hours. |
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We left at 17:00 hours. On this ship are several bars, a sauna, a swimmingpool and a store.... |
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and a vew restaurants ! Even an orangetree - but it was a plastic one. |
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our cabin with seaview. We slept very well. |
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The next day we came to the city of Tallin in Estland. Thats the former USSR. We disembarked and had to embark in another ship that took us for a (small) trip to.... | |
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Helsinki! We had a nice hotel directly at this harbour. Suprise nr 1: In the hotel there was somebody who could talk Dutch with us. We decided to walk to the centre of the city and while walking we heard 6 groups of people talking Dutch! (no French, no English, no German - DUTCH. It must be something in our genes that makes us Dutch travel so much) I found a Webcam with live footage of the harbour :-) |
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In Helsinki there are lots of beautifull buildings, made of solid granite rocks. | |
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This is Helsink station. Look at the guys who are holding the lamps! |
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I was in Good Company - in our hotel there
were two other Subaru drivers: one from Austria and one from Switserland.
For the connesseurs: There are three generations of Foresters in this pic. (Subeman: :-) ) |
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Finland is bi-langual. There are Finnish and Swedish speaking people. At the right plate it makes sense: Oulu - Uleaborg and Kajaani - Kajana is defenetely the same. But I think it's strange to translate Pietarsaari in Jakobstad :-) |
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In the second world war there was heavy
fighting in Finland. This was a gun in a museum we visited. After Helsinki we decided to drive north. We stayed in several hotels and ended up in .... |
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Oulu. The wooden house we live in in Valburg was prefabricated in Finland. So when we saw these very old wooden houses in Oulu - we found we made a good choice! Click here for a webcamvieuw of the marketplace and our hotel. |
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Up North ! Driving up north we found we were not the only road-users! Reindeers walk in a strange way. Like beeing drunk or something. |
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while driving we found this museum ship,
the Sampo, an old icebreaker. It used to keep the
harbour icefree. That was necessary for the export by ship
of wood and paper. want to see the sampo crush some ice? Click here (movie) |
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we were allowed to see everything. Even the large dieselengines ! | |
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and the bridge of the ship. | |
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while drivin Tina gave me apples :-) | |
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Rovaniemi-city Speaking about reindeers: This is the polar circle. Santa Claus lives here! But in the summer season he seems to be somewhere else - I did not see him. |
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Hee Subeman: this pic is for you. Subaru dealer at the polar circle! |
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We left Finland and went via Sweden to Norway. This are the ironmines from Kiruna Sweden. It seems to be the best rough Iron in the world. | |
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Suddenly appeared the Norwegian mountains ! So we made the 'mandatory' pic with mirror-effect :-) | |
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Again apples.... | |
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12 o'clock. PM or AM ?? This is the city of Narvik at the Norwegian westcoast. About 400 kilometres above the polar circle. The sun never sets in the summer over here - at midnight it shines.... from the north! BTW: it is midNIGHT on this pic. |
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again crossing the polar circle at the city of Mo i Rana. | |
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Sweden Again! After Norway we went south and came in Sweden again. |
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While driving we found this old iron melting stove. Very interesting! | |
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there was also a wood museum with nice carved statues. | |
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In Trollhattan Sweden we found the SAAB
carworks and visited the SAAB museum. The latest Saabmodel - the Saab 9-2 was not jet there. Insiders like my friend Subeman know that the Saab 9-2 is in fact a Subaru :-) |
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Tina is not that tall. But this was really a very large steamlocomotive! |
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We had a nice holiday! We drove about 7300 kilometer and our sube did fine. Like my friend Subeman I have a blind confidence in Subaru - so I did not even open the hood for a check-up while traveling. Tina bought a flag of every scandinavian country we visited and the next pic will be of all those flags hanging at our house.
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