Our southern trip was a chance to get to have a look at Finland and to head down to the southern tip and Helsinki for the last part of our holiday.
Rovaniemi to Kuopio was almost a 6hour drive, but it was made a little tedious by the slower speed limits on the main roads. Overall Kris said this was the hardest of all the drives, including the marathon 9 hour drive from Gävle to Luleå.
The second leg, Kuopio to Kotka was another 4 hour trip, but we made it longer by going via Olavinlinna castle, pushing it to 5 and a half hours.
We arrived at Kuopio quite late in the afternoon and unfortunately didn't have the best experience. We had an apartment in a quiet part of town and managed to get the key fine, but the ticket machine wasn't working for parking so I had to go for a bit of a hike to find one. We then managed to get everything upstairs to the apartment fine, but Kristine and I ducked down to get the last few items while the kids relaxed in the apartment.
When we came out of the apartment main door there was a man wandering around suspiciously outside the building. We pulled the door shut quickly as he headed our way and made our way to the car. He lingered in the doorway for a while and so we decided we would do a lap of the block before heading back inside as we didn't want him to follow us into the building. We started down the street (in the direction shown in the picture above) and he headed out of the door and started to follow us slowly. There was a path leading into a carpark that we thought headed to be back of the building, so we thought we could shortcut that way and end up looping around and back to the door. Unfortunately it was a dead end. The guy appeared at the corner and turned and started walking into the dead end towards us.
We stood our ground and made direct eye contact with him and he backed off and walked down the street away from the apartment. We went inside but decided not to take the kids out for a walk that evening.
Unfortunately that coloured our experience of Kuopio - a town that is known for its vibrant markets, nature walks and friendliness. Instead we cooked up some leftovers and had an early night.
The next day we left early and headed out towards Kotka. We decided to take a detour to visit the Olavinlinna (St Olaf's Castle)
The castle was built in the 15th century and is the northernmost medieval stone fortress that is still standing.
It was founded in 1475 by a knight named Erik Axelsson Tott, a Dano-Swede in order to protect the eastern borders from the Novgorod Republic (part of modern Russia).
The castle was built as a three towered keep and completed in 1485, with an outer curtain wall and two additional towers started immediately after. Two of the towers have since fallen, St Erik's Tower had a poor foundation and collapsed, and the Thick Tower exploded in 18th century due to a munitions detonation. The remaining towers are the Bell Tower, Church Tower and Kijl's Tower.
The tower defended against the Russians multiple times during the Russo-Swedish wars and was never captured. It surrendered to the Russians in 1714 and again in 1743. The castle and region were ceded to Russia at the Treaty of Åbo in 1743.
1. Entrance 2. Ticket Office/ Museum Shop 3. Large Courtyard
4. Bell Tower 5. Church Tower, Chapel 6. Kija's Tower
7. Thick Bastion 8. Ruins of St Erik's Tower 9. Bell Tower
10. Watergate Bastion 11. Smallgate Bastion 12. Suvorov's Bastion
13. Tallisaari (Stable Island) 14. Statue of the Black Ram 15. Statue of Castle Spirit
16. Riihisaari (Granary Island) 17. Lake Salmaa Nature Centre 18. Museum Ships
19. Mallatsaari (Malt Island) 20. Kyrönniemi Penninsula 21. Hirsipuunsaari (Gallows Island)
 |
| The Black Ram |
The Black Ram is an important figure in the story of Olavinlinna. The story goes that a black ram climbed the walls of the castle during a storm during an enemy attack. The lightning spooked the ram and it reared up. The enemy saw a horned figure on the battlements and feared it was the devil, running away from the castle.
There is also a story of a water spirit (merman) or Vetehinen that lived in the waters around the castle.
 |
| The boys taking part in a castle feast |
We didn't have a huge amount of time, but we decided to take the tour of the castle. We got a family ticket for (€25 - half the price of a Santa Photo!), which is a pretty decent price for a family of 5.
They had guided tours but the next one was in Finnish and we didn't have a lot of time, so we decided to go self guided.
 |
| The impressive roof of the bell tower |
 |
| Tower Model |
 |
| The Black Ram |
 |
| The chapel |
 |
| Paintings on the wall and roof of the chapel |
The view from the defensive corridor out over the water was pretty impressive:
 |
| Cam trying out the medieval toilet ("It's cold!") |
After finishing up at the castle we continued on our way to Kotka, passing a stone's throw from the Russian border:
 |
| Russia is off over that way |
 |
| Snapchat Maps |
 |
| Svetogorsk, an industrial town in Vyborgsky District of Leningrad Oblast, Russia (thanks Wikipedia) |
 |
| This way to Saint Petersburg |
We arrived at Kotka at around 4pm and it was already pretty dark. We had arranged to meet the owner to get the key and after a few minutes we managed to get hold of them. After loading our stuff into the apartment we headed across the road to the shop to get dinner sorted.
I only got one picture of the town, and it's Kristine putting her hair up (she may kill me for posting it):
After a good night's sleep we were packed and ready to go for the next day and our short trip to Helsinki.
No comments:
Post a Comment