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).