Land of Lakes and Islands

On the night of 22 July, our car C3PO and ourselves slept overnight (13 hours) on the massive 2500 person, Finnish "Viking Line" ship from Stockholm to Turku (top photo, Finland's oldest city, 750 years old!). From Turku we drove to Finland's capital Hellsinki (pop 560,000, founded 1550AD). Finland is 338,000 sq km (7th largest European country, two thirds France) with only 5.2 million people. It has 187, 888 lakes, 98,050 islands, is the official home of Santa Claus, was founded by the Swedes in 1155AD, became an independent republic in 1917, joined the EU in 1995 and adopted the Euro in 1999. The Fins are generally blond and blue-eyed and it takes time to get to know them. Their English is good, prices are expensive but cheapest amongst the Scandinavian countries. Helsinki is more imperial but the Fins do not like Russia and avoid visiting. Sites we visited included: the 1952 Olympic Stadium, the 19th century white and gold Lutheran City Cathedral, the largest Western European Upenski Orthodox Church (only 2% of the pop are Orthodox), the Esplanadi (cafe lined boulevard), outdoor harbourside markets and a harbour cruise to the UNESCO protected Swedish built, 1748AD fortress on the island of Suomenlinna. Naturally, all the lifts and elevators that we used in Finland were KONE! Finland is also home to Nokia. We left our little car at 16,080km in Hellsinki for a 9 day rest as we headed to Moscow on the Russian "Tolstoy" train!!!