To Lapland

It is quite a distance from Wales to Finnish Lapland! Getting there would be a trip with many stages. It started early, but I got to the airport without problems, and onto the flight without problems, and into Helsinki without problems. I had snoozed a bit on the plane!

Somewhere along the way 

In Helsinki found the bus that goes past my sister’s office; she had told me which one to take. All went well with that as well. I even had a little bit of time to kill before she would finish work. And a few minutes after that should be the case I rang the bell! 

She opened the door and with that holiday had properly begun. We hadn't seen each other for quite a while! She showed me into her therapy room. She had some things to round off, but I was quite happy to sit in a chair and drink tea for a bit. When she had rounded off we decided we would have another snack, then make our way to the railway station, and then have dinner on the train itself. That meant we wouldn't have to hurry. And that's how we did it.

I had hoped that we would have dinner while the beautiful Finnish landscapes would roll by, but we seemed to have to wait quite a while for some other train to do something, so our views were on a decidedly unromantic shunting area, but so be it.

We talked a bit more, but after not much time I wanted to have a shower and go to bed. I had got up at 4 am! So that is what we did.

In the morning we had plenty of time for breakfast on the train, as it was delayed by 90 minutes. And we reached Rovaniemi in the pouring rain. There we picked up the rental car, and we took it to nearby big shop. My sister had prepared a lot of food, but it seemed efficient to not lug everything all the way down from the south, so we needed to buy additions here. And then we could make our way east, to our cabin. Or rather; first to where we would get the key.

Arriving in rainy Rovaniemi by night train

The landscape in Lapland tends to be a bit on the monotonous side, but it was beautiful anyway. And there were the obligatory reindeer on the road, of course. 

Lappish traffic

We wondered a bit if we should first go to the cabin, or whether we should already do a bit of a hike along the way. I thought we might as well do the latter. My sister knew some nice nature trail along the road. It seemed silly not to do that! So we parked up by the start, where there also was very scenic café.

I said the actual holiday had already begun, which is true, as the most important thing was to see my sister. But now we could start hiking around in the empty landscape. Or start in the cafe. I figured we would have a whale of a time there!