Friday was Midsummer!! This is a big deal in Finland (and all over Scandinavia). They celebrate it like it's New Years. They always have a party Friday night, and no one works on Saturday! We arrived at a very remote and cool little hostel in
Kaartilankoski. It really felt like summer camp. It was way out in the woods, set on a lake!! The best part of the whole experience was getting to use the sauna. Fins all have saunas, and they use them daily for bathing and relaxing.
Our sauna!
We were in the eastern part of Finland for this excurtion (close to Russia) where there is almost as much water as land. It was really beautiful driving around and seeing the country. Here is a
map of our journey through Finland.
While we got to enjoy the sauna and lake, we also still had to see some architecture. We visited Savonlinna, the Lusto Forestry Museum, and Vuoksenniska Church by Alto.
The Forestry Museum was pretty interesting. They had a collection of chainsaws and tractors (Dad, you would have liked it!). They used a lot of wood, and in very interesting ways. They also hold the title of my favorite bathroom so far, but I never got a good picture of it (it will only live in my mind)!
Vuoksenniska Church (Church of Three Crosses) was next, and the last building of the weekend. There were very few straight curves in the building. It's amazing to think of the time put in to draw the plans and details of the building without the computer!
Here are a few of my sketches from visiting the building.
Hi Katey,
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Was the lake muddy or sandy (or neither)?
Enjoying all the photos,
Larry
The lake had a lot of minerals. It was very clean, but the color of iced tea! There was a lot of silt at the bottom.
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