Häme Medieval Festival in Hämenlinna. Thoughts and first impression

I wanted to attend Häme Medieval Festival for two years now. I was obsessed with the idea after I visited Medieval market in Turku back in 2017. It was my first Medieval experience and I loved it! And I am so happy that I finally got a chance to join the Middle Ages fans just like myself in Häme this year.

Exploring Finland: road trip to Hanko via Snappertuna, Tammisaari and Fiskars

My original plan was to go to Ahvenanmaa by car for a weekend. But after a deep and more detailed research I came to a conclusion that two days is just not enough. It’s doable in three days, but best is to have at least four. It also means that it will need a bigger budget as well. Long story short, plan A went right out the window. And for some unknown reason I haven’t prepared any plan B, which is completely out of character for a control freak like me.

Why I chose Hanko? Well, I’ve never been there before. Plain and simple.

Exploring Finland: to Kotka city by car

Exploring Finland: road trip to Kotka

Kotka has been on my Finnish Bucket list for quite some time. I’ve been there only once, back in February of 2013. But it was a short visit and I hardly saw anything. Yet I’ve heard many positive things about this city, and I desperately wanted to come here again, preferably in the summertime and find out whether it is as beautiful as people describe.

Snowy Easter in Kaipola

Last days of March… and spring was nowhere to be found. Grey landscapes of Helsinki and Espoo were starting to bore and depress me. It’s like weather got stuck somewhere in the middle – between winter and spring. It was snowing almost every day, and in the evenings snow was turning into slippery mud. So, I was more than happy to leave Southern Finland and spend Easter in Kaipola, Central Finland.

Finnish Archipelago. Part one

We have been planning our mini Finnish archipelago road trip for quite some time. And only in the summer of 2016 it finally became possible. Although I must admit… it wasn’t easy. Sometimes I even thought that the weather is against us. It was raining almost every single day. Downpours were replaced by rain, rain turned back to downpours, and we didn’t see the end of it. In other words, the summer of 2016 turned to be a real Finnish summer.