More Finland, and a bit of Estonia!

My adventures in wintery Finland continued with - surprise, surprise, a cruise to Tallinn. Tallinn is the favorite destination for Finnish booze-cruisers, but it's actually also one of the most picturesque and well-preserved medieval cities in Europe. So off we went, me, dad, Janne and Katja, on the brand-new (the rather boldly named Megastar, if memory serves me).

The journey through the snow-covered Helsinki archipelago was quite a nice one, and we arrived in Tallinn just in time for lunch! After some quick research on tripadvisor, we decided to book a table at a place called Mekk. And boy, was it good... Tallinn is one of the best places in Europe to eat very sophisticated and tasty food for extremely reasonable prices. The food here was about as good as at Chef et Sommelier the day before yesterday, yet the prices were considerably easier on the wallet. OK, I know labour costs aren't the same, but for people coming from Helsinki, it's great!

The food bit done, we had our mandatory stroll around the beautiful historic centre. We checked out the main square, with the picturesque town hall, and visited the free pharmacy museum - quite an interesting little curiosity (and still an open pharmacy as well, actually!). We then made our way up to Toompea, or castle hill, and briefly checked out the nice views across the old town. We also paid a brief visit to the beautiful Orthodox cathedral - this one is even nicer than Uspenski cathedral in Helsinki, I would say.

The next stop was the (bear with me, a bit of a mouthful, this) Lennusadam seaplane harbour. It basically houses a huge seaplane hangar, which has been converted into a naval museum, which charts the small yet energetic nations naval history. The place is worth visiting just for the inventive building, and how it's used to showcase the boats (including a submarine!). The highlight here is no doubt the submarine, which can be visited on the inside, but there are also other interesting ships outside in the harbour that can be visited. A very interested place to visit, if miliary/seafaring history interests even a little.

And then, 'twas time to head back to Helsinki. We were nearly sober on arrival - are we getting old or what ? Nobody should get back sober from a Tallinn cruise...

On Thursday, I had a crazy plan to go and meet some ex-Nokia colleagues in Tampere. I actually managed to convince my young cousin Jukkis to drive me to Tampere with Jarkko's rather cool 5-series Beemer. We started our visit by checking out an ex-colleague's, Pentti's, startup called Nomicam. Quite an interesting setup they have, great to catch up with some ex-colleagues as well.

The plan was then to meet up with some more folks for dinner, but before that we had a bit of time to kill, so after a rather tasty burger meal at Friends n' Burgers (I say that without irony, their burgers are great!), we headed off to check out the Finnlayson factory complex, kind of for no particular reason, other than the fact that it's quite an interesting place to stroll around. We visited the Werstas industry museum, which was actually very interesting - and fantastic value for money as it's free! Tampere is sometimes called the Manchester of Finland thanks to its industrial heritage, and this museum pays great homage to this aspect of the city's past. I warmly recommend visiting should you happen to find yourself in Tampere.

The meal was great - we had loads of beer and ridiculously spicy chicken wings (I asked for suicide level sauce - you get what you ask for), and had quite a good turnout (Sami, Hannu & Rita, who used to live in Nice, Pentti and also Olli, my ex-colleague from Ulm). Great to catch up with everybody! We made it back in one piece, rather late at night, thanks to some sterling driving from young Jukkis.

Now, no wintery visit to Finland is complete without an "avantouinti" (Finnish for "winter swimming"). This time around, I wanted to try it out at a place called Löyly, a sort of fancy sauna in Helsinki, located in Hernesaari. It's a little bit pricey, but quite a wonderful place to visit. The architecture is great, and so are the saunas. There is even a "savusauna" (a smoke sauna). And of course, I got to do the winter swimming, even if the hole of the ice was rather tiny (not that winter swimming in my case really implies any actual swimming - it's more a case of "get in there, try to survive for about a minute, and get out").

After a booze filled night out with Aki and Jani, it was sadly time for me to head back to France on Saturday. All in all, yet another wonderful visit to my home country.  Hopefully it won't be too long until I can make my way back!