Helsinki to Hämeenlinna

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  Hämeenlinna, Finland
Tuesday, September 2, 2008

 Well we've done a lot this 24 hours too!
 
Last night, after we had connected to the Internet, I went in to have a shower as David was getting ready for bed. There was a dreadful crackling noise & when I asked what made that noise, David's answer was "Jack" (his laptop). Then when he went to shut it down it made another really dreadful noise & David said "I hope it doesn't have a virus".
 
Things didn't look quite right so he decided to boot it up again - and it wouldn't finish starting up. We waited & waited & eventually went to bed. I asked David "worst case scenario - if it won't work, what do we do?" We have relied on info & programs in the laptop for much of this trip. David said "I suppose we'd just have to use lots of internet cafes".
 
Bearing in mind we hadn't been to bed for a long time, we eventually crashed asleep. I was dreaming about doing something on the computer when memory of the problem hit me like a punch and woke me up. I couldn't see a clock but when David woke shortly after I asked him the time - 2.30. When we came back from dinner we'd been cold & turned on some heating - it was now too hot & we got up & turned off everything & opened the window a little.

At 4.30 it was still too hot. David got up & moved the mouse to see the status of the computer - and it was working! (I'd been longing to do that but wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer). We went back to sleep.

Market hall in Helsinki

Around 6 David got up for a shower. I considered dozing on but decided that once David was back he'd want the laptop, and I'd thought of several things in the night that were only on the laptop that we could have copied onto eg a memory stick for backup. So if there was to be any ongoing doubt about Jack...
 
Anyway Jack was behaving itself & so I also looked through the photos I'd taken to prune some - no longer feeling safe to trust to copying to Jack when the SD card is filled. Jack made a couple of funny noises so I am still not totally reassured.
 
By 8 we were packed up, I'd loaded some photos into last night's blog, and we went down to breakfast. Included in our hotel room was a buffet breakfast - a large mix of hot & cold options, some particularly Finnish, some not. Amongst the hot foods I had was a "rice cake". It looked a bit like a pastry you'd have as a fruit flan, but with some white rice something in the middle. Very good.
 
We decided to check out & leave our luggage in the luggage room so it didn't matter if we didn't get back to check out before noon.
 
Again we walked down to the market place, and this time the market was open. We went first into the old market hall - that was fascinating. All sorts of food stalls in a lovely old fashioned wooden building. Many stalls had sort of prepared rolls - including one apparently popular combination of reindeer kebabs in a roll. Some lovely cake & sweet stalls too, as well as the stalls of fish that sometimes give the English name of Fishmarkets to the stalls.

Reindeer meat in Kauppahalla, Helsinki

(By the way, this market is just next to the harbour.)
 
Outside the market hall are tents of outdoor market stalls. Many vegetables, cheeses etc that we didn't recognise, as well as some touristy souvenir stalls. We bought some unusual pastries for lunch - my choice involved apple, David's involved cheese & blueberries. I also bought some raspberry biscuits (2 biscuits joined together by raspberry something.)

Speaking of berries - there are LOTS of gorgeous looking berries around here. I bought a punnet of raspberries and David bought a bag of cherries.
 
Then we went up to the Orthodox Cathedral again, and this time it was open. This is the largest Orthodox church in "Western Europe". I don't know where the division is, because St Petersburg is not far away & that is called "Eastern Europe". They asked for no flash inside the cathedral but photos were OK. Some amazing icons.
 
Then we walked back down past the Presidential Palace & various other buildings we'd seen last night, but this time we had identified them in guidebooks. Past the Senate Square again & the Lutheran Cathedral - this time, in the morning, there were lots more tourists & tour buses parked all around the square. I was glad we'd been there last night. At 6 o'clock the light had been much brighter than the overcast morning today.
 
Then we went to the Helsinki Museum. Absolutely fascinating. I'd known more about Norwegian & Swedish history, and this gave a wonderful perspective.

Uspenski Cathedral, Helsinki

Helsinki was built on the junction of 2 rivers, on the crossroads between Stockholm & Moscow - and the poor Finns had suffered for that almost ever since.
 
For a long time in their history, Sweden ruled the area of Finland. Indeed, it was almost a case of Terra Nullius. The Finns were there - but the Swedes moved in & "colonised". Like the English in Ireland, it was the Swedes who were the lords of the manor, and the Finns were the peasants.
 
Nothing was written in the Finnish language until the 1500s - the Bible - and then most Finns couldn't read anyway. Most Finns couldn't read until around 1800 and now it has the highest literacy rate in the world.
 
It was only when Sweden opted to support Napoleon & he lost, and then Sweden lost a war to Russia, so Sweden had to cede land to Russia and they ceded the area of Finland, which became a Russian duchy. As we learned later in the day, this was the first time the Finns had thought of themselves as a unit, and led to their first desires for independence. Then when Russia started oppressing them, it fermented the first seeds of rebellion and a desire for independence.
 
Ironically Swedish is still the 2nd language here & even street signs are all in both languages. It seems there is no resentment for all the years of occupation.
 
When Russia had its revolution, there were white & red armies fighting a civil war in Finland too. With German help, the whites won, but then Germany lost WW1.

Inside Ateneum theatre, Helsinki

The civil tensions took a long time to heal. Then Finland - like everywhere in the region - suffered badly under WW2, and then it became a welfare state. Until poverty meant that the government couldn't afford a welfare state & times were tough again. Then another phase of success & optimism.
 
Pardon my sweeping half-remembered potted history there, but it brought together some aspects of history that I did know, and many that I had absolutely no idea about.
 
We've travelled before to Norway & Sweden & Denmark, and at the time I wasn't interested in visiting Finland, but it is fascinating. And the people we've met so far have all been very friendly & helpful.
 
After this museum we walked to the hire car office. I wasn't feeling well & my feet were sore still from yesterday. However we have brought our TomTom GPS navigation system from Sydney, but it was at the hotel & we were not, so we needed to find a route from the hire car place back to the hotel, in an area of Old Town with many 1-way streets & also many roadworks & detours. Frankly I felt more capable of driving than navigating.
 
That is saying a lot given that we have hired a small manual car, and we must drive on the right side of the road. Not only just the indicator & wipers are on opposite sides to what we are used to, not to mention the steering wheel, but so is the gear stick. So when I say I'd rather drive than navigate ...

Hameenlinna Castle

 
I said to David to forgive any jerks with changing gears, but it hasn't been too bad. Once I forgot to have my foot on the clutch when I went to start the car & it jumped a bit before the brake stopped it, but only once.
 
We have a little 1.6 engine Kia Cerado. Our car has a little boot - but we don't have much luggage. Nearly all the other cars we've seen here are hatchbacks, station wagons or 4WD. Very few sedans.
 
By the time we came out of the Helsinki Museum it was raining quite a lot, and that has continued for the rest of the day.
 
Oh yes, I must tell you. We managed to find our way from the car hire depot to the hotel - despite roadworks blocking one street we had been advised to take. We reached the hotel, collected the luggage, set up TomTom - and waited - and waited. What were we going to do if it didn't work here?
 
Eventually David went back into the hotel & asked for directions to start us on the route to Hämeenlinna. We thought that maybe TomTom was having difficulties with the high rise in Helsinki. It was a huge relief to us when it eventually kicked in.

I guess that the last place it knew where we were was Narraweena & maybe it took a while to work out that we were now to be found in the maps of Finland.
 
The drive out of Helsinki was tricky in town but then a long stretch of motorway. I wasn't always sure of speed limits but it wasn't hard to stay on the right side of the road on a divided road.

Hame Castle amazing brick work from 14C

The only time I've erred there was coming out of a narrow car park entrance where I was not really on the right. So far the experience is new enough that we are talking about where the lane continues after turns - which helps me remember the side of the road.
 
Lots of pine and birch trees along the sides of the road. Houses & farms generally are wooden - apparently that is a lot less cold in winter. Our hotel here in Hämeenlinna is cement rendered, but we have triple glazed windows.
 
Anyway, back to the drive. We made it to the town of Hämeenlinna but then parked somewhere to work out how to tell TomTom that we wanted directions to the castle. Couldn't find castle in "places of interest" but we did manage to identify a nearby cross street & then we could see the castle from there.
 
The castle overlooks a lake & it's a really pretty town, but wet and grey unfortunately today.
 
We sat in the car beside the lake & ate our market bakery products & fruit, and then walked beside the lake up to the castle. The guidebook recommended trying to get an English tour because all the display signs inside are in Finnish & Swedish only. David walked ahead to ask - it was nearing 3 o'clock & we knew the castle shut at 4. The girl in the ticket office offered to take us on a guided tour in English - and it was wonderful!
 
It was only us so we could ask lots of questions, not only about the castle but also about the town & Finland and the Finnish language.

Hame Castle - Scribe's loo

The castle dates from the 12th century & there are traces of an earlier construction beneath. There is a mix of centuries - stone & then bricks from 13th-18th centuries. From the 1800s to 1953 it was a women's prison - mainly for women who had had illegal abortions!
 
Then it was returned to being a castle. They spent 30 years removing all traces of the prison and taking it back to a castle and drawing on evidence to restore rather than replace. Quite amazing - there would be a narrow medieval window where archers could fire through, and above that would be a 16th century window which had had glass.
 
It was a real rabbit warren to make our way around, but fascinating. We saw the chapel, the vaulted ceilings of the "festive rooms" upstairs - upstairs the "new section" was 15th century. As I say, it was a wonderful opportunity for us to learn about all sorts of things we've wondered about here, and a knowledgeable guide with very good English.
 
After the castle we drove to the Art Museum (or Hämeenlinna Taidemuseo). Where we originally parked turned out to be a staff parking area, so we had to drive around some more to a parking area for visitors - as it turned out, visitors to a theatre, but the art museum was walking distance up a hill from there.
 
Downstairs was a mixed collection of really wonderful Finnish art from 1800 on - fascinating to see how the Finns painted their own country. And what a time of social change for Finland! Some lovely art.

Hame Castle statue

Upstairs was a special collection of the art of Dora Wahlroos - 1870-1947, she studied in Paris & elsewhere. Some quite revolutionary images of women - including a woman sitting smoking, naked women around a sauna ... And beautiful, beautiful art. She had to support herself as an artist by doing portraits, but it was mostly her other art that really appealed (to me at least).
 
After the museum we walked down to the lake and (pausing to photograph some trees) made our way back to the car & then drove here to the hotel. It's so wet that we're thinking of eating in the restaurant here rather than going out again.
 
David is ready to go now. I'd better get ready & finish this later.
 
Later. Well we hadn't really wanted to go to a hotel restaurant for dinner, but it was excellent. A good range of foods, all written in 3 languages (Finnish, Swedish & English). The waitress was friendly - indeed we've found that everywhere here.
 
While we were waiting for our meals we said how favourably we feel about Finland. It is pretty, the people are friendly, and there is some fascinating history.
 
David had for dinner a sort of pork steak with pepper sauce. I had smoked salmon (cooked with smoke, not what we'd call smoked salmon at home) with a sort of lime-butter & yoghurt sauce. Then sorbets. And all sitting at a window table looking out at the rain on the lake.
 
By the time we'd finished our meal the rain had stopped & so we went for a brief walk down beside the lake. Brief particularly because I didn't have my coat. It was 9 degrees at lunch time here today. Considerably chillier now. The rain has stopped. It may well start again tomorrow, but we can hope.
 
Oh speaking of the temperature, our car even has a switch for "heated seats" - but the swith "will not operate if the ambient temperature is higher than 3 degrees". Incidentally, 21 C seems to be  the magic ideal temperature in Finland. The car's heating is set at that & so was last night's hotel central heating. That's why it felt too hot for us in the middle of the night.
 
David is fading fast so I'd better wind this up now.
 
Love to you all from Kerry & David in Hämeenlinna, Finland.
 

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Hameenlinna medieval painting

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