{finland, day 14, old rauma, part II}

a dance studio
i love old towns with their cute little boutiques and cobblestone streets.

another marimekko store! :)

the old town hall was built in 1776. now it houses a museum.

the church of the holy cross. an old franciscan monastery church from the 15th century with medieval paintings.

:)

too cute!

there you have it.

a snippet of old rauma.

i loved being a tourist in finland. :)

next: turku castle.

{finland, day 14, old rauma, part I}

another cloudy, sprinkly day so we headed to rauma to see "old rauma", which is an unesco world heritage site. the buildings date from the 18th century and it's rare to have so many old wooden buildings survive to this date as they often would burn in a fire. even in rauma there were two huge fires that burned the buildings in 1640 and again in 1682. that's why these buildings are "only" from the 18th century. there are appr. 600 buildings if you count the sheds as well. 800 people still live in this area. we toured the private home area first and then found our way to the main square were there are little boutiques and restaurants.

loved this place!

i heartily recommend old rauma even to all my finnish friends.

rauma is known for it's lace. they even hold a lace festival every summer.

"siins saa hikkoill

ennengo siin leipäs ansatte

eik stää kaikk taulupääp

pyst tekemänkkä"

a lace making device in one of the shops we visited.

{finland, day 13, pori & kirjurinluoto}

i took a picture of this concert poster at our hotel because my dad said he went to this concert.

so... as i mentioned the weather didn't co-operate when we were in yyteri. so what to do when you can't go to the beach? you go shopping, of course! :)
but first we took a quick driving tour to see the sights.

we ate voisilmäpullia at a street side cafe, found lots of great stuff at the marimekko store (they had things i couldn't find in the helsinki main store!) and just enjoyed a relaxing day in downtown pori.

we had some time left before heading back to our hotel for supper so we went to kirjurinluoto. what a fun place! a beautiful park, a petting zoo and multiple playgrounds for kids and those who love to have fun like kids. :)

i loved these A swings! i wish we had them here in canada too. you feel like you're on a star wars vehicle or something as you go up and down and around. so much fun! we all took turns riding them.
at the hotel: supper, swimming (sienna & jay, i think i ate chocolate and read a magazine :)) and visiting with my dad.

next: old rauma!

{finland, day 12, kajaani castle ruins, tar making}

it's taking me forever to do this vacation report. i'd only select my favorite pictures to show here except that this blog is for myself as well. i don't keep photo albums, i keep blogs. so bear with me. we're past the half way point at least. :)

before we left kajaani, we stopped at the castle ruins to take some pictures.

as a child, i used to play in the park behind it. there was an awesome frozen tobogganing hill in the winter.

i've always been a bit scared of the river around the ruins. i honestly can't believe that they haven't built some sort of a fence around the ruins. the river flows very quickly at times due to the water power stations.

there's a great history behind the kajaani castle but i won't bore you with those details. :)

bye bye kajaani. hope to see you again soon.

on the road again. this time to the west coast. to a place called yyteri. about 6 kilometres of sandy beach was waiting for us...

at one of the ABC stops, i found these historic pictures of people making tar. one of my ancestors was a tar master so i was intrigued by the pictures.

finland used to supply tar for ship builders in europe. finnish people still like the tar smell. there are tar scented candles, for example.
anyways, if someone happened to see a silly FINNISH tourist snapping pictures of these pictures at a ABC stop... it was me. :)

in yyteri, we visited with my dad. we stayed at a hotel right on the beach. but guess what?

the whole time we stayed here, the weather didn't co-operate. it was cloudy and rainy. there was even a huge storm one night. the sand was flying like crazy and the wind actually caused quite a bit of damage in the surrounding area. did we pick the right time to visit the 6 kilometres of beach or what?! :D oh well, we still got to do fun stuff so it was ok. i just thought it was kind of funny that i barely even saw the beach at all. :)