Scandinavia Tour Part 1: Kiruna-Rovaniemi-Helsinki + Estonia

16th February 2006
1120-1540: Lund C- Stockholm C (train)
1750-1040: Stockholm C - Kiruna C (train)

18th February
Visited the Ice Hotel at Jukkasjarvi, 18km east of Kiruna. This is one of the top 10 attractions of Lonely Planet: Scandinavian Europe. Every winter, the hotel is built from hundreds of tonnes of ice taken from the frozen local river. There are about 50 rooms for guests to stay. This place is seriously COLD. There's also a chapel beside the hotel.


Outside the Ice Chapel. During Christmas, there is wedding service. How cool to be solemnised here. haha. Inside the Ice Chapel. funky door.

Inside the Ice Chapel. The pulpit and seats are made of ice. duh.

These are reindeer skin.

Entrance to the Ice Hotel.
Reception of the Ice Hotel.

Hallway of the Ice Hotel.

Dining table and chairs.

Room numbers.

Inside one of the suite rooms. Each room has a different design and is cleverly carved by international sculptors.

Fancy a seat on an ice chair?

another suite.

Absolute Ice Bar. Other branches are in Stockholm, London and Milan. This bar is cool man.

Bought a drink from the Ice-bar. The drink came in an ice mug (below). Got to use gloves to hold the drink cos the mug is slippery and cold.

Beautiful isen't it. You can eat the mug since it's just a big cube of ice. :)

We drank juices. The alcohol is ex. haha.

20th February 2006

Made a crossing from Kiruna (Sweden) to Rovaniemi (Finland). Refer to map. Details of the crossing:

Kiruna - Lulea via train 0750-1122

Lulea - Haparannda via bus 1310-1510

Haparanda (Sweden) - Tornio (Finland) via foot

Tornio - Kemi via bus 1850-1935

Kemi - Rovaniemi via train 2134 - 2255

At the Sweden town of Haparanda. This is the Sweden town adjacent to the Tornio town of Finland. There's no physical boundary separating these two towns other than a golf course.
A car reversed and jolted me from the back as I was taking photos here. The driver had obviously seen me when we alighted from the bus. Gave me a rude shock. Bah.

Finland!

Still standing on Swedish snow. That's Tornio on the Finland side. All I had to do was to walk across that piece of snowy ground to reach Finland. No passport control.

Took a train from Kemi to Rovaniemi - home of Santa Claus. Cool double-decker Finnish train.
At Santa Claus Village. This place is exactly on the Artic Circle. Sent some postcards home. Took a picture with Santa for 19Euros. Had slight difficulty trying to protect the A4 size photo as I continued my journey to Helsinki and Estonia. haha. The photo was an ovbious rip-off tourist trap but I figure I'm only going to do it once in my lifetime. I won't ever return to this place, not in the near future at least. ;). This place was crazy: at 5pm SHARP, the entire place was empty other than a few other tourists. It's as if all the workers in the sourvenir shops, tourist office and post office had jumped into the sledge with Santa and disappeared into the woods
According to Lonely Planet, this Macs is the most northern one in the world. Had dinner here. ;)

22nd February 2006

Took a train from Rovaniemi to Helsinki . Went to the first-class carriage by accident. While waiting for the train to move off, a Finnish girl in the same carriage asked me for 5 Euros for her train fare. She needed 85 Euros but only had 80 Euros. I was feeling stingy and told her that I didn't have 5 Euros. I felt kinda bad for a short while. Anyway we discovered that we were in the wrong carriage and moved to the second-class carriage. It then dawned on me that the girl was in the 1st-class carriage and asking for money when she could easily afford a seat in the second-class carriage. I'm so slow.

View of Helsinki from the Olympic Stadium tower.
Interesting car park.
The Olympic Stadium built for the 1952 olympics Notice the green football field and black ground that are not covered by any snow. Contrast it with the snow-covered stadium ground on the left. Maybe these two patches are heated. hehe. Very interesting constrast.

The green football patch once more. It's so difficult to see a green piece of land that has no traces of snow on it in Scandinavia.

Helsinki city centre.
Uspensky Cathedral: an Orthodox cathedral designed by a Russian architect of the tsar.

Inside the cathedral. It's a small cathedral but rather impressive.

23th February

Took a 3 hour ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn (Estonia). The beautiful Old Town is a Unesco World Heritage Site and is one of the best-preserved towns in Europe. This compact Old Town is surrounded by walls and remnants of the past are still largely visible today. It's a really lovely feeling inside the medieval Old Town. ;)

Wanted to leave my backpack in the locker in a shopping mall. The locker required a 5 Estonian Krooni coin. I tried to get the change at 2 kiosks and 1 fast-food outlet, and even bought stuffs from the supermarket to get the coin but to no avail. I asked a passer-by for change and she told me that the coin is not circulated and that the ordinary man on the street does not have the coin. What is going on!!!!? I read the instructions on the lockers again and realised that I had to get the change from the money changer. Finally got hold of the rare 5 EEK. Changed an extra 5 EEK to keep the coin as souvenir.

View of the "new town" of Tallinn from the harbour.

View of the old town from the harbour. That spire on the right belongs to a church that used to be the tallest church in the world.

The town hall.

Main entrace to the Old Town: the Viru Gate.
This houses the Maritime Museum.

The pink building is the present Parliament House.

Along a street.

View from the Toompea Castle.

The top of the tower is actually red and not white. Snow snow go away, come again another day. A lady selling almonds. It was a surreal feeling to walk past her with audible medieval music from a restaurant in the background.

I have no idea what this is. ;)

The oldest pharmancy in Europe. It dates back to at least 1422.

Part of the wall around the town.