Saturday, June 11, 2011

More: Finland pt. 2

Here are some more pictures from my adventures in Finland. After being in Helsinki for about 5 days (with travel and all time was a little hard to keep track of initially) we went to the city where we spent the largest portion of our trip. It is a beautiful little city called Savonlinna. It is an absolutely gorgeous town of 20,000 people or so. It's on of the many cities that sits on the shores of Lake Saimaa. There are many things about Savonlinna that warrant a visit but two stand out. One is the castle, Olavinlinna, and the other is the annual Opera Festival. We weren't there during the opera festival but we did get to tour the castle. I've always been in love with castles and medieval times so I was super excited to tour my first castle.
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Let me just say a few words about our hostess, Leena (lay'-nah). She is a physician who has a private practice in the main level of her beautiful home. She allowed 12 of us to invade her home for 14 days. She met us at the train station and gave us all a hug and called us by name. Now that's hospitality! I must say, if it hadn't been for Leena we would not have had nearly as many cultural experiences as we did. She showed us all around Savonlinna, taught us about sauna, swimming in nearly freezing lakes, the endangered Lake Saimaa seals and much more. I will never forget her or her family for their amazing support while we were in Savonlinna.
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I'll post more about the things we did while in Savonlinna later but here are some pictures of the city. I loved Savonlinna and would go back in a heartbeat. Absolutely beautiful!
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