Pyhatunturi Lapland

This is our frist of many night trains accross Europe.
We Leave Helsinki on the 9th and get into Rovaniemi very early on the 10th

We should have a fun packed Day in Rovaniemi. looking to do some arctic rally driving. and other male bonding activities.

And so here I am again. In Lapland... my favourite place in the world! Its so beautiful and just has something magical about it!

I'm staying at a ski resort called Ruka which is really small but still great! The apartment I'm staying in is amazing too and cheap as well!!! Its got everything you can think of... massive flat screen tv, dvd, fireplace (and loads of wood), full kitchen and of course a sauna... sooo nice! I am ...

... watching a movie in our private room again. We are getting spoilt!
The Saturday we spent at Santa's Village where we saw Santa, for real!! We had a photo taken, which we did not buy, it being 30 pound for five small photos! We spent the rest of the day there visiting the rest of the village and official post office. Karen linked up to the Arctic Circle Live Web cam and saw us there jumping about, then we went and had a photo on the official ...

... możliwe sklepy z pamiątkami i sklep-muzeum z nożami (nikt jednak finki nie kopił).
A potem podekscytowani udaliśmy się do miasta Świętego Mikołaja. Miasteczko to jedno wielkie centrum handlowe - sklep na sklepie z pamiątkami, czy to taki z Mikołajem, czy ogólnymi z Finlandii. Prawdopodobnie zimą na turystów czeka tu więcej atrakcji - w końcu lato to czas kiedy elfy produkują ...

... but it was a bit of a let down. It was a bit of a ghost town and very few people around. We did meet Santa which was pretty cool and he was very nice to us all. However, there really wasn't anything else to see just lots of tourist shops that weren't all that exciting. We did get some cool photos with the Arctic Circle line and wandered around.

... without stopping...and besides the 'goods to declare' and 'no goods to declare' queues, there was no real border control or anything...and that meant I didn't get my passport stamped! Dammit.

We stopped at Santa's Village today, for a free tour of his home on the arctic circle. It was all a bit weird, inside it felt more like it should have been a haunted house, and outside it felt like an abandoned theme park ...

... to help them sleep in this time ;-)

Thank you so much to the people that showed us around up here! Everybody was very friendly and we had an brilliant time. It was too long ago to write up the stories now... but I hope the pictures do it some justice :)

... Lucy and Dan helped to choose it from the photos displayed on the site. We then finally booked the flights after many problems a year and a half later! Trying to get flights that tied in with the cabin dates was a nightmare.

Eventually, however, it was all sorted and Christmas 2008 was spent in a beautiful log cabin surrounded by snow and trees. It was the most amazing place - so very magical.

The first day was spent visiting Santa at the ...

It turns out I was completely wrong, after staying on the roadside for about five hours and four hundred cars, the traffic eventually came to a halt. Then I decided to look for a hotel to spend the night, but it was too late - they had all closed fifteen minutes before. My only option left was to sleep at the bus stop. It was even shaped like a house, what else should I want? :)

We visited Santa at his home today. We had decorated the bus with Christmas decorations and us girls had made flora hats to where for the day. We sang Christmas carols and gave our "special friends" Christmas presents. Santas house is lovely, we had ...