Eurosully, Somewhere, somewhere (2025)

04/12/2025

😢Our last night in Finland- so sad!

🇫🇮We’ve enjoyed our time at Camp Rastila and would recommend the campsite if you are ever here in Helsinki.

⛴️As you can see from the map we are very close to the ferry port and tomorrow we will close the loop on our fantastic journey as we get back to the place we started from.

🤔However, I have one more touristy thing to do tomorrow before we leave…

03/12/2025

🎄Are your Christmas decorations up yet?

🎄In Burnley we use the phrase ‘trimming up’ to describe the process of putting the decorations up- is this a phrase you’ve heard of as we think it’s quite unique to the Burnley area( or just our family!)? Let us know!

🎄We only brought a few bits with us on this trip, so here’s our ‘trimming up’ all done!

02/12/2025

🎄Feeling festive in Helsinki!

🚇Metro into the city took 15min- €10 for a day pass which covers all forms of transport- even the ferry to Suomenlinna (UNESCO fort). We bought our tickets using the app -I’d read that no one checks for tickets and they didn’t! Amazing trust.

🌬️The fort was windy and chilly but interesting. We visited here in 2007 with the girls in our gap year- had a caravan then though!

🍰We had an afternoon coffee and cake at the self-declared best cafe in Helsinki- price reflected that accolade too but it was delicious.

🎄The city looked lovely in the evening when the lights came on. The Christmas market was pretty- located at the foot of the stunning white cathedral. It was…OK…not a huge fan of Christmas markets really but glad we went.

Metro back…drink in the restaurant/cafe on site…and then home for tea!

01/12/2025

🍫Happy advent calendar starting day- hope you had a nice chocolate to start the day.

😳First time being overwhelmed in a shop today!

🛒We arrived in Helsinki and went to do a shop at the K-Market- been to loads and they are very good- however, the one we went to today was mahoosive! Took me ages to work out how to get into it-and then how to get out! So much food…so much choice…could feed a small village for a week!

🥔However, shout out to the best crisps ever- they even beat Walkers and Lays- crinkle cut Taffel sips are the way forward.

🚿We are now at a campsite- our first and last one of this trip- looking forward to long showers. I asked for one near the shower block and we couldn’t be any closer!

Andrew’s been gone for ages…🪒🚿🧼

30/11/2025

🥾After a lovely walk through the forest today we chilled out in the van and tried some more Finnish delicacies!

🖤Salmiakki licorice chocolate and the licorice itself. It’s an unusual taste as the salmiakki salt (which is ammonium chloride not the usual sodium chloride) can mess with your brain as it can trigger salty, sweet, sour taste receptors and also and pain/irritant receptors.

🌚We liked it! It is an unusual sweet, salty, sharp mineral taste. I asked Chat GPT to design me a chocolate dessert with it but with another classic Finnish flavour of cardamom.

😋She really came through with a great recipe for Salmiakki-Cardamon Mud cake- or Kladdkaka in Finnish.

An AI triumph in a van!

29/11/2025

❤️A busy day at Nuuksio National Park!

🔪Am- a wander round the Christmas and outdoor-themed flea market- a purchase was made!

📷Pm-an interesting talk by a Finnish photographer called Ossi Saarinen on his lynx project- he has some fantastic shots with ‘Paws’ being an award winner.

🔦Later pm- we’ve changed our overnight spot to be in the national park for the night. Our dark walk with torches and night vision binoculars to spot flying squirrels came to nought (as expected) but was fun nonetheless (or so I thought- Andrew less so!).

🤞The nature cam and night binoculars are out tonight…

28/11/2025

☔️Today has been a soggy one in Finland…but it’s warmer and that means all the snow and ice has gone from the roads…which is great.

💶I contacted a nearby campsite to see if we could pay to do services- they said yes…€10 mind just for grey waste!

🐺Anyway, I realised that this was the same guy I’d emailed last week regarding an eagle photography experience they advertised…that didn’t come to anything because he said that the friends he has who feed the eagles can’t do that anymore because of the wolves! Only in Finland!

📷Kai was a lovely chap and turns out he is a photographer and is a member of the Professional Nature Photogrpahers of Finland SAL. We chatted about nature and he showed us his campsite and his bird feeding station-with a pond he feeds the otters in!

😳He showed us his YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/?si=9tX7wPwyUzgY8IWl) and lo and behold did he not see a lynx walk through his garden one night! His campsite is right on the edge of Nuuksio National Park and he’s been there 5 years and only seen a lynx on camera twice-never face to face.

📷He also gave us the first publication of Nature Exposed which is a beautiful book created by all the professional photographers in the group to showcase Finland’s nature (wildlife and landscapes combined).

These serendipitous moments are the best!

🍴We are now at the Finnish Nature Centre Haltia on the edge of Nuuksio National Park (home of the Flying Squirrel). We’ve had a lovely lunch in the dog friendly cafe and asked if it was ok for us to spend the night in their carpark. They said yes!

🎄Tomorrow is the Xmas and outdoor flea market at the centre with free entry to the exhibitions and meet a professional nature photographer…I’m going to see if he’s in my book…

27/11/2025

✅Jobs day today- services and laundry.

🧺We’ve found the 24hr Pesulas (laundromats) really handy as they are attached to supermarkets, which in turn are attached to food outlets etc. They all have special rug washing and drying machines too which I’ve not seen before in the UK.

🎿We love wandering around the supermarkets to see what’s different here- sauna supplies, skis, sledges, ice hockey sticks and plenty of merino wool socks- you don’t see them down at your local Asda!

🍔As the laundry was underway we finally visited a Hesburger- Finland’s own chain of fast food outlets. With 4 times more outlets than McDonalds in Finland, we thought it was time to pay them a visit- for official review purposes only of course!

🍟So…good value meal deal, really nice chips and we liked the sauce on the burgers.

🍔But, overall ranking first to last: Burger King, Hesburger and McDonalds.

26/11/2025

Today’s walk around Porkkala has been a walk of ‘and then’.

So we’d been enjoying the beautiful walk and then saw a treecreeper, hopping from tree to tree. Lovely!

We walked on and I said ‘I’d still love to see a Created Tit’ and Andrew said he’d love to see a Gold Crest …and then…

…literally 2 mins later we walked on and saw them both, just hopping on the floor and flitting between the branches. We watched them for ages.

As we walked on we commented how we’d not seen any deer in the forest, despite seeing them in the fields on the way here…and then… 2 deers ran out in front of us and then circled us, allowing us to get some great shots!

…and then, as we stood photographing another treecreeper a friendly Great Tit came very close on a branch…and then…landed on Andrew’s lens, then onto his shoulder and started pecking at the fluff on his new hat, and then back onto his lens! Really cute and all captured on film (look closely at the photos!)

So then we said we’d still like to see a moose…and then…

…we didn’t see a moose! 🫎

25/11/2025

😳I’ve put my nature cam out loads of nights in Finland and the most I’ve seen is a magpie’s tail!

🫣This morning, however, I was very excited to see that it had triggered a few times in the night…super duper!

A rat! A flipping🐀 - soooooo disappointed!

🚐Parked up in another forest - caught the last light of the day…at 4.30pm!

Tomorrow is set to be lovely and sunny, albeit hovering around zero degrees C, so we have planned a couple of walks to explore the area and stay here for a 2nd night.

24/11/2025

👩‍🎨Today we visited Fiskars Village, a community of artists and designers who live and work in the historic ironworks buildings.

🫣What a pretty place- but don’t visit on Mondays as most places are shut, although we did manage to visit a couple-axes and baubles in the same dog-friendly shop.

❤️We are now parked up with another stunning view across a lake- my lunch spot has never been so pretty.

🚐Alone…again…peace.

23/11/2025

🧌After a lovely morning walk around an enchanted forest looking for trolls (none found 🧌despite this being called Troll Forest (Trollskogen)- false advertisement !), we drove 10mins to the town of Ekenäs- which the Swedish version of its Finnish name, Tammisaari.

🇸🇪We know that places in this part of Finland have signs with both languages, but this town is the first we’ve seen where Google and our map uses its Swedish name.

🗣️We also know that the Swedish speakers number 81% v Finnish, so presume that is why the Swedish name prevails! The municipality of Raseborg as a whole is majority Swedish speaking.

📽️It has a lovely old town with a variety of colourful wooden houses whose renovations are strictly regulated, Finland’s first pedestrianised street, the oldest still-used cinema and is Finland’s 7th oldest town.

🎄Also, our first Christmas tree lit up (seen hundreds in the woods 😂). The lights went on in most places last night here in Finland.

Are the lights on back home?

Eurosully

04/12/2025

03/12/2025

02/12/2025

01/12/2025

30/11/2025

29/11/2025

28/11/2025

27/11/2025

26/11/2025

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24/11/2025

23/11/2025

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