Travelog for: Banyo

After a good night's sleep we arrived back in Helsinki. The cruise was fun! The Baltic Sea was calm both ways. Stockholm was a bit wet but who cares 

On this rainy day I went to meet Santa Claus! He was scheduled to arrive on an old train to attend the Grand Opening of Old Porvoo's Christmas. There's no trains operating to/from Porvoo anymore - just the old ones on tourist seasons (summer + xmas). Santa came on a "Lättähattu" ("Flat Hat"). It's a Dm7 type "train car" which were built in the 60's mainly.

Before we met Santa we took a look around in the old trainstation area. They still have some old trains there (I think they must be very rusty, standing outdoors all the time). There's a sort of a shop where they sell nostalgic vintage stuff (and newer handicrafts). We followed their small model train while waiting for Santa's arrival. It was ok, but nothing compared to the huge miniature world we saw in October!

Finally Santa and his train arrived! He was really nice and Santa-like  He greeted everyone and talked with children - and some toyvoyagers  It's a secret what we discussed 

After chatting with Santa we walked towards the Old Porvoo and The Opening. We did some window shopping on the way as the Old Town is full of small shops selling handicrafts and other quality products.

The Opening of Old Porvoo's Christmas wasn't as Grand as they let us think. Some people (including Tsar Alexander I !!!) gave speechees, then Santa sang with us and finally Santa gave kids candy in that big "teepee". There was also a torch parade but the people holding he torches were kids and thus hard to see behind all the mass of people. My host said there had been an Opening of Porvoo Christmas (with more stuff to see & do) last week but she forgot it and thus we missed it  *sigh* She promised she'll do better next year - I wonder if she said that last year when she forgot both openings... Ok, she did do better - at least she remembered the other opening 

After the speeches and stuff we did some more window shopping. They have this competition of who has the best window - people can vote and there are prizes to both winners and voters. That little Moomin House in one window is allways there - they just redecorate it to every season. Obviously they were celebrating Christmas too 

PS. Mom, do you remember what those red bells are made of? Those hanging above the streets? I think Alfie must've told you 

If not, try decode the answer: stekcub citsalp

My host l-o-v-e-s crafts. She has this huge amount of supplies all over the house. Today we helped her make cards for lonely seniors. A "craft-supply-shop" (Tiimari) gathers christmas cards and Helsinki Missio (an organization that helps people in need) deals them out to lonely older citizens. My host likes to make people happy and she loves carfts so this was perfect for her. First she told us how to make a snow lantern card. That "lace" cutter was really hard to use! But only because the card was so thick. We added some snowflakes and yellow glitter and there it was! We also made cards with hearts, old christmas stamps, christmas trees... etc. It was really fun! We tried to be carefull with the glitter but I think everyone sparkled afterwards  We made 13 cards. It's awesome to think that 13 old people will get a card from us and hopefully be happy, maybe our card is the only one they get.

We went to this little park and it had snowed a bit! We were near the Porvoo Cathedral, do you see the roof and clock tower back there? We climbed on these cool bent trees and it was fun! Some of them had these little holes where I could hide 

Happy Independence Day Finland!

Apparently my host felt really bad for not taking us to the grander Opening of Porvoo Christmas... Because we drove to another tiny town (population 7400) east from Porvoo to see its Christmas events! This town is Loviisa and it took us only 30min to get there. The town was founded as a frontier and fortress town in 1745 on land beloning to the Degerby Manor and was originally called Degerby. King Adolf Fredrik of Sweden visited Loviisa in 1752 and decided to rename the town after his wife, Queen Lovisa Ulrika.

This is the very center of Loviisa; the church and the market place, surrounded with tourist info (pink building), police station, hotel, gym (yellow building)... They had a really cool looking police station! Not that we needed to go inside, I'm not that kind of a bear... Just look at the lamp on the stone building

The church is called "the church in the middle of the road" as it stands in the crossroads of two main streets of Loviisa. It was finished in 1865 (architect being Georg Theodor Policron Chiewitz). There are 1000 seats. 

The last photos show the bastions (or actually one of 2) that were built to protect the big road (The main road between Turku and Saint Petersburg, the E18, that runs through Loviisa). Nowadays there are only ruins left and the area is used as the set of various plays in the summer.

This is the best tourism region in Finland! The Finnish journalists rewarded the destination management company Porvoo tours and destination East Uusimaa on MATKA-Travel Fair 2008. That means Loviisa and Porvoo 

After climbing up and down the bastion we walked thru the old town towards the Laivasilta area. We stopped by at an art gallery as they had an art competition for kids. We were too furry to attend and some of us were to *cough* old *cough* to attend  While the kid in our company painted I took a look at the other paintings (the ones that were on display). Next week we'llknow if the kid won 

The Laivasilta ("boat bridge") area had an xmas market there with lots of special handicrafts for sale. I mean, look for example at the animals made of spruce! Even my host was suprised and adored the work someone had done.  It was quite hard not to buy anything...

We succeeded in not buying anything and left to look for Santa. Again we walked thru the older town. Some of the Traditional Christmas Homes were open for public but we didn't get to go in any of them. They're called TCH although they're regular homes decorated in different xmas styles (more old than new) and they serve coffee and bakings.

We did find Santa! He had left the reindeers home to rest for the big night(s) and took only a pony with him. We got to go on a ride with the pony carriage!

Finally we stopped to eat.

Lastly we tried to find the orthodox church but found only the bells... We took a look at the Bonga Castle thru the starting blizzard (ok, I'm exaggerating a bit... it just started snowing) - it's the atelier-museum of the artists Riitta Nelimarkka and Jaakko Seeck and located in the town centre, next to the church. Over 200 works by Nelimarkka are on display, covering a period of about 20 years (ranging from colourful textiles to oil paintings and drawings). The building itself is over 100 years old.

On elast look to the center, sitting on an anchor... And heading home!

PS: Municipalities of Loviisa, Liljendal, Pernaja and Ruotsinpyhtää will merge on January the 1st 2010.

As all the christmas cards are made and sent it was time to start baking gingerbread cookies! My host has various cool cookie cutters but she let us use only part of them. She explained that these cookies we would give to old people in her last job (along with cards) and that we would make more later - to eat ourselves  She promised I could use Moomin cutters next time.

The dough was a bit hard but teamwork was the key to success 

When the cookies had cooled down we got to decorate them. My host gave us only two sorts of sugarstuff - white and brown. But again she promised there would be more variety when we made new cookies.

We were pretty fast and unmessy 

This morning we drove to a park in the city. There was a Christmas party and Lucia came to sing! Lucia is more a swedish tradition - to bring light in the dark - but it origins from Italian Saint Lycy. Every year they choose one Lucia in many cities. Teenage girls apply and the public may vote for the most suitable (from 6-10 contestants).

We listened to the Lucia (and her 2 "runner-ups") sing, ate porridge and gingerbread cookies and danced around the tree When we got home we noticed it was allmost -20 degrees Celsius! No wonder the porridge cooled down fast 

My host makes a different kind of gingerbread building/something every year. This is was the time for a carousel! I helped her do it and here you see how it turned out - pretty cool huh? 

Afterr finishing the gingerbread carousel we decorated the tree! My host "cursed" because first she had troubles with sawing the tree and then she realised it didn't fit the pedestal... That's why it stands in a bucket  Well, at least it'll get enough water 

The kids did most of the decorating but we did supervise at least  And we got to climb it when they were finished. It turned out pretty too!

It's finally really snowy here! The temperature is a bit milder but at least we have snow! It's going to be a white Christmas