Sightseeing in Helsinki

In spite of all the rushing about (that's how visits back to Finland tend to be these days, when you try to see as many people as possible), we did manage to enjoy a couple of days in Helsinki. It is a rather delightful summer city, actually (although it would be a real stretch of the imagination to say we were blessed with that "famous Finnish summer weather").



We decided to do some proper sightseeing this time (I have to admit to my shame that I was somewhat neglectful in this respect during the wild, irresponsible days of my youth...). The first visit was Hvitträsk, which is a country house built by three of the most famous Finnish architects of the late 19th to the early 20th century (Herman Gesellius, Armas Lindgren and Eliel Saarinen). It's located about 20 km west of Helsinki, in Kirkkonummi, by a large and tranquil lake (in fact the estate derives its name from the lake). The exterior of the estate was a bit of a disappointment (although it is nice), but the interior impressed - with its original use of materials and art nouveau architecture. We also had a relaxing walk around the lake - for once we were blesses with some nice weather.




We also met up with Aki (who's a media analyst these days, and also a bit of a TV personality - he's been interviewed since he's probably the biggest expert on Irish history in the country...) and had a couple of drinks.


Continuing our exploration of Finnish pre-independence artists, we visited the former house of the famous Finnish painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela (who is actually distantly related to me), Tarvaspää. These days it houses a museum for his and his contemporaries' art. I really like the building, but I have to admit the exhibition was a bit of a disappointment (there wasn't all that much to see).




In the evening, we emptied my flat at Vuorimiehenkatu, which I had actually sold the day before (there was a bit of a misunderstanding - the flat wasn't actually empty!), with my parents as well as Janne & Katja. The plan was then to have dinner - which actually turned out to be quite a challenge. We really struggled to find a restaurant that was open - and this was Saturday night! Finnish summer holidays... We eventually managed to find a nice place that was open...



After the meal, we met up with Janne, Katja as well as my cousin Rasse and his girlfriend in Vltava (a nice Chezh pub by the train station).

We only had time for a quick walk around the town centre on Sunday before we had to catch the bus to the airport. We had time for a quick coffee with Corporal Jani Mantila (the mad fool has joined the EU forces!) at the airport cafe...

Finnish wedding!

Time for a Finnish wedding, for a change. Jani and Katja are the lucky souls - and what particularly warms my heart is that he apparently proposed to Katja whilst in Provence (when they were visiting us here in Nice last new year). Jocke, who also visited us (on the 1st of May weekend), had the honour of being best man (and a good job he did as well!).



The wedding ceremony took place in Mataskär - which was kind of nice since I did my "rippikoulu" there (I don't know what it's called in English - kind of like a summer camp you do before your confirmation). The main stars of the evening arrived in style - in a Rolls Royce imported from the US of A.



After the ceremony we were transported to Villa Rulludd, where the celebrations continued with some great food, drinking songs, dancing and other merrymaking. The venue was very nice indeed - normally the villa acts as a museum.

We shared the table with some old school mates of mine, like Pate, Stadi and Riku. Nice to see them - must be about 10 years since the last time we met up!

Relaxing in Pargas

After our road trip in the archipelago, we stayed a couple of days at Rågård, our summerhouse in Pargas (which is about half an hours driver from Turku). Unfortunately, we were rather unlucky with the weather, so we actually decided to visit some of the tourist sites of Pargas.



Not that there are particularly many... We visited Stentorp, a sheep farm in Kirjala. In fact, it's owned and ran by one of my friends' mother (Dan - whom we actually met up with in Nice a few months ago). Very nice place - should you ever happen to be in Pargas, be sure to pay a visit!

Next door's, there is a nice country housed called Villa Rainer, where we actually came for dinner later on. Nice place, nice location, nice interior - if only the fish had been fresh ;-).




Apart from that, we did the usual things one does at Rågård - went to the sauna, swam in the swimming pool, had great food, walked around the local lake, visited my grandmother, etc. So to summarise, we had a very relaxing couple of days in spite of the bad weather!

Turku Archipelago trip

After a pretty action-packed week in Nice, it was time to head down to the airport again, and catch our flight to Helsinki, where we planned to spend a week enjoying the famous (?) Finnish summer (which weather-wise turned out to be a bit like the winter on the Cote d'Azur...).

At the Helsinki-Vantaa airport, we were treated to the now-familiar experience of Lufthansa having misplaced our luggage (I was still waiting for the last set of luggage they had misplaced 4 weeks earlier!). This meant that we spent Saturday morning in Helsinki buying clothes and other necessities, before jumping on the bus to Turku.



We got off in Kaarina, were taken to our summerhouse in Pargas for a quick lunch, and then headed to Nauvo. My parents had booked a great placed called Nagu Gammelgård (free advertisement again :-) for their ruby anniversary celebrations - we needed a big place since the whole Turtiainen clan was present.... It's a really nice and peaceful place (it was originally a farm I guess, and then a retirement home), with nice and cosy rooms and a good pizzeria (the best one in town...).




We finished the day off with a nice dinner (freshly caught salmon) and some music entertainment courtesy of my younger brother Janne, who is more gifted than me in that department, and finally indulged in that great Finnish pastime - the sauna.



On the Sunday, Mathilde and me decided to be really active, and went for a bike ride. It was pretty hard going actually, since I haven't been on a bike since my army days, and also the bike only had one gear... We made it all the way to Högsar, the island just south of Nagu, making use of the local ferry service. We also spent some time exploring Nagu town, and finished off the day eating the famous Gammelgård pizzas.



On Monday, it was time to head back to the mainland. We made our way back via Själö, were we made a short stop. It's an interesting island, with some very nice wooden houses, very typical of this region. There also used to be a mental hospital here until the 1950's (apparently the only thing people were allowed to take with them was the materials necessary for their coffin...). After a great lunch at the Rantamakasiini in Merimasku, we finally reached the mainland. We tried to visit Louhisaari, which is the birthplace of Mannerheim (one of our great national heros), but unfortunately, it was closed (although we did have a walk around the mansion).

Dinner with Tutta and Anita

Time to meet yet another visiting relative! Tutta had made her way all the way from Strasbourg (where she lives) with Anita, a friend of hers from Harrison, New York (apparently I met her during my visit there when I was a kid - probably about 20 years ago...) Tutta's and my uncle's family used to live on the other side of the pond for quite a few years.



After a quick tour of our flat, we went to Cours Saleya for a nice dinner. From what they told us during the dinner, it sounds as if though they have been very busy! (they have seen at least more art galleries during three weeks than we have during 9 months :-). The dinner was nice - I had scorpion fish (which I've seen during some of my diving trips, but never on a plate...).

Jari's leaving do

So time for another Finn to leave. This time it was Jari's turn to leave, after about 6 months in Nice. I guess he doesn't mind too much though, since he gets to go back to sunny Oulu (well, he might do come later September... ;-).

We went to Thor pub in Cours Saleya - where else :-) It's one of my favourite places in Nice, probably because the staff speaks even worse French than me (I was quite surprised when I went there the 1st time, and my question: "Une biere, s'il vous plait?" was met with a blank stare, followed by the question: "Sorry, I didn't understand").

Jari's house and pub-crawl mate Neil came along, as well as Ismael and Sami. So we had a few beers and remembered the good old times - such as paying 90 euros for the Monaco Grand Prix (= sitting on a grassy, steep hill and trying to make out the formulas in the distance).

The Danube Delta

The last leg of our 3-week journey took us to the delta of the Danube River, which flows out into the Black Sea. To reach Tulcea (the main town of the delta), we had to take the train back to Bucharest from Brasov, and then the bus to Tulcea.

We had organised to our accommodation in a small village about 20km from Tulcea, called Murihiol, we were staying at a farmed owned by a Ukrainian chap called Sergei. The plan was to take the bus there from Tulcea, but as arrived to late to catch the last one, Sergei had to pick us up with his trusty old Dacia (the local car manufacturer in Romania - basically they manufacture Renault cars on a licence. The latest model, the Logan, is apparently pretty sought-after in France as well because it's cheap simple enough to fix by yourself if you know what you're doing!).



We got up very early the next morning, to go and explore the delta with Sergei, who owns a boat. It was a very fascinating day indeed, as he took us down the one of the main rivers, but also down small canals, and also through a lake. The Danube delta is one of the main bird- (the ones with wings ;-) watching (regions in Europe, and it was actually quite interesting even if it's not really my thing... The delta is particularly famous for its pelicans; they nest here before flying down to the Nile for the winter. We also saw a fox, loads of frogs, a couple of sea snakes, and a vulture (not to mention loads of other birds of various description).



In the afternoon, we went to see some nice ruins near our village, dating from the 2nd-6th century AD. Unfortunately, there were no explanations or signs about the ruins, since the excavations are still very much in progress (it was quite funny to see somebody's lunch bag casually amongst some of the excavated items...).

The next day we took a longer trip with the boat, heading out all the way out to the Black Sea, via a very nice lagoon (where we saw a large group of pelicans), to one of the main villages by the coast, Sfantu Gheorghe (there wasn't really all that much to see there, I reckon Sergei took us here so he could have a pint with his mates...). Then back to Murihiol it was...



The next morning it was unfortunately time to pack up and head back to Bucharest to catch our flight back to Nice. We had a bit of a scare the night before because we realised that we didn't have enough money to pay our host (let's just say that we paid a bit more for the boat trips than expected...) - and our bus was really 1st thing in the morning, and on a Sunday... So we really hoped the cash points in Tulcea would work... (and they did, fortunately).




We didn't have a lot of time in Bucharest, but we did manage to visit the Jewish quarter of Bucharest before though - an interesting area even if only a couple of synagogues remain from that period....

The road back to Brasov

The plan was then to drive down to Brasov, taking our time, return the car, and then head for the last leg of our journey - the Danube Delta.

The road back to Brasov was actually very nice too. We started off by stopping in the Neamt region, which like Buchovina is very famous for its monasteries. These ones are more functioning monasteries than historic monuments (and therefore also tourist attractions), like the Buchovina monasteries. We visited one located in Agapia. It was not as pretty as the Buchovina ones, definitely less colourful and more austere, but it was kind of nice to see some nuns who did other things than guide tourists, for a change.



From here, we carried on to Tazlau, where we spent the night at the Florean family's farm. After meeting our very friendly hostess (who spoke excellent French), we went for a walk through the village and the nearby hills (and also visited the local ruined monastery). You could say the place pretty well encapsulates the positive "cliches" of rural Romania, without being touristy at all (with geese wandering in the streets, farmers cutting hay in the street, old ladies gossiping on benches etc.). We finished off the evening with another great farm dinner, made from local products, with a nice Alsatian family (French people, not dogs ;-) who were also guests at the farm.



The next morning we carried on towards Brasov, driving through the awe-inspiring Bicaz gorge (pity about all the tourist shops along the road), and finally reached the famous red lake. It's a very beautiful lake set in the midst of the mountains, which apparently has reddish water (it seemed pretty blue to us), because the lake was apparently created by a landslide. Very pretty, though - with tree stumps sticking out of the water.






We were now in the Hungarian-speaking parts of Transylvania, which was apparent from all the Hungarian tour buses passing us by, and the Hungarian restaurant where we had lunch. Actually, we ended up spending the night in a Hungarian-Romanian village near Brasov, called Purcareni, with a Hungarian lady. The dinner was, again, great (and atmospheric, since we had to have it in candle-light due to a power cut caused by the raging storms outside...) - and I even got to practice my extremely rusty Hungarian (all 10 words of it!).

The next morning we drove into Brasov, and returned the car, and jumped on the bus to Tulcea, in the Danube Delta.

Buchovina

Feeling a bit sad to leave the picturesque Maramures region, we nonetheless pushed on relentlessly towards Buchovina. We decided to take the pretty mountain road, which unfortunately also in very, very bad condition - with big potholes sometimes covering half the width of the road! The views were pretty and the sun was shining, so all was well - until we had the flat tire. Well, I suppose it was bound to happen at one point... But maybe we were hoping it wouldn't happen in quite such a remote area as it did....




Well, all turned out well, we got the spare tire changed, found a hotel to spend the night (we had a bit of a shock when the lady, who didn't speak a lot of English, said the room would cost 1,000,000 lei! Then we realised she was talking about old lei, so in new lei the price was a more reasonable 100 lei) - and of course the setting was very nice, in the middle of the mountains (we even had time for a bit of a hike). In the morning, we got the tire mended, and on we drove, to Buchovina...




Buchovina is a very rural area, much like the Maramures, very famous for its orthodox monasteries - which are beautifully painted both on the outside and the inside. On our first day in the region, we had time to visit two of them, Moldovita and Sucevita. Both of them were quite stunning, especially the well-restored and beautifully painted interiors. There's still quite a lot to do on the outside - but once they finish the restoration work these monasteries will be amazing! (well, they already are).



Buchovina isn't all about monasteries though - the scenery there is very beautiful as well, in the middle of the Carpathian mountains. There are also plenty of traditions and old rural life in Buchovina, and lovely little villages. We also had time for some hiking, and for visiting a real gem of a church Arbore - where we even got a guided tour in kind of a mixture of Italian and French!



We did get a bit of a taster of Buchovian life also, staying at a very remote farm (we were quite worried about getting another flat tire, driving there!) in the middle of Buchovina. Our host turned out to be quite a character. We were greeted by his dad, a cranky old Romanian, and had to wait for the son's arrival. He did finally arrive, in quite a merry mood after quite a few shots of Tuica (the local liquor, made from plums). Quite a place, his farm! Our living quarters were, by Romanian standards, pretty luxurious (kind of reminds me of a Finnish log cabin) - covered by animal furs (apparently from his hunting trips...). The dinner didn't disappoint either, almost everything on the table was produced at the farm or in the village (including the wine and tuica, both of which I had a wee bit too much of...). At this point, we found out that our host was also the mayor of the town (and later we heard that he used to be a general under Ceausescu!).



After such a great stay, we left with a heavy heart (and me, with a sore head), but such is life. The next day we visited some more Buchovian landmarks, starting with a salt mine in Cacica (which interestingly enough is a Polish village, complete with catholic church) - an interesting place with an underground sport hall, a couple of chapels and some nice carvings in the rock.



Then we visited 2 other monasteries, Humor and Voronet. Especially Voronet was absolutely stunning, with maybe the best-preserved paintings we saw in Buchovina (both on the inside and outside).

Then it was once more time to head off, as our time in Romania was nearing its end...

Maramures

From here on we drove into the Romanian countryside. Our first destination was the Maramures - a region of Romania which has managed to stick to its traditions pretty well (in spite of some noveau rich who are unfortunately making their mark with their big fancy villas).

It's a lovely, quaint region of wooden churches, old farms, traditional costumes, friendly people and lovely scenery (dotted with haystacks).



The drive took us through winding mountain roads (kind of reminded me of the Alp Maritimes...), and into a lovely valley taking us past lovely, picturesque villages. It was like being taken back 100 years in time - people still use horse & cart to bring the hay back from the fields (although admittedly that seems to be the case everywhere in Romania!). Eventually we reached the main town of the region - Sighetui Marmatiei. After booking a hotel room, we set out to explore the area.

Our first stop was "Fosta Inchisoare de la Sighet et Muzeul victimelor totalitarismului" (bit of a mouthful, that). Basically it's a museum dedicated to victims of the communist regime (the building used to be a political prison). Interesting place, very well presented - wish I understood more Romanian though (a lot of the material wasn't translated...)!



After this, we drove down to Sapina, which is famous for its "happy cemetery". Basically the local grave maker has a very characteristic way of making graves - each blue wooden tombstone is decorated with a picture from its owner's life, as well as some witty text (well, it's obviously in Romanian, so we have to assume that is the case!) describing what the deceased had been up to in his life. It's a unique and wonderful place, I've never seen anything like it anywhere else! We also visited an under-construction monastery - with a ridiculously high wooden church (75 meters!)



We finished off the day with some leisurly driving through the lovely countryside - even stumbling onto a village fare at one point. After having a dinner in a nice (if somewhat touristy) restaurant back in town, we went to sleep, after a great day!





On Sunday, we continued touring around the countryside. The plan was to visit some of the wooden churches the region is famous for, which turned out to be a bit difficult since everybody was at mass (this being Sunday) - and unfortunately most of the churches were closed in the afternoon (looks like they really do rest on Sunday in this part of the world...). At the same time, it was great to see everybody walking down to mass wearing their traditional dresses (and I do mean everybody...) - we felt a bit alien in our shorts and t-shirts! We did manage to visit one old church on the inside, and were treated to some great artwork on the walls in the church...



As much as we loved the region, with its friendly people, we decided to head towards Bucovine in the afternoon - since we were quite pressed for time...

Saxon cities

After our quick visit to Bucharest, we headed for the Saxon cities, located in the centre of Romania, in Transsylvania. It's an interesting bunch of cities, with very strong German influence. This can be very clearly seen in both the architecture, culture and even language (these cities also have German names, and it seems to be quite widely spoken).



Our 1st stop was Brasov, which is the 2nd city of Bulgaria. It's a very nice city, with a very pleasant old centre. It reminded me a lot of cities like Krakow, Heidelberg and Tubingen, with its old guild house in the middle of a big town square. The main cathedral here is also a catholic one (which is kind of unusual since Romania is predominantly Orthodox).

After our unfortunately short visit in Brasov we made the tactical decision to rent a car, since it seemed unrealistic to get the most out of Romania (especially the countryside) by using public transport, as we had initially reckoned on. It turned out to be a wise decision, even though driving in Romania is quite an interesting (and at times very scary!) experience. Let's just say that the road network is in sore need of funding, which it is getting from the EU at the moment, which unfortunately also means that every road seems to be under repair (so a lot of temporary traffic lights, which Romanians don't seem to pay much heed to...).



From Brasov we went to Sibiu, which has the honour of being the Europian capital of culture for this year. A well-deserved honour - Sibiu was even prettier than Brasov, with its 3 well-preserved medieval squares. The only gripe I would have is that although the locals have obviously put a lot of effort by putting up temporary exhibitions and informative information points - it's all in German and Romanian only!




The other problem we came up against was the fact that all the hotels in town were booked, so we had to stay in a small spa town called Ocna Sibilui. Which wasn't actually such a bad thing - the hotel we were staying in was a really great family-run place, in a very nice building. Also we were treated to the unusual sight (well, not in Romania, as it turned out...) of the cattle being brought back into town. So you could say we got stuck in a bit of a traffic jam...





The next morning we visited the Astra museuem (after accidentally entering a military area, as we were sternly informed by a grim Man In Uniform), which is a very impressive open-air museum, a bit like Seurasaari in Helsinki. Basically it's a plot of land where they have reconstructed/moved various rural buildings (farms, churches, workshops) from different parts of Romania.



The next stop was Cluj-Napoca, where we spent the night. The city is definitely not as nice as Brasov or Sibiu, but it is interesting in addition to a strong German influence, there is also a very noticeable Hungarian presence here. For example, the university offers teach in both Romanian, German and Hungarian. But we didn't linger long - there didn't seem to be much of interest apart from the large gothic cathedral and some interesting old buildings (the old buildings are in a lot worse shape than in Sibiu and Brasov - with a bit of investment this place could be a lot nicer).