Our holiday to Lapland has been over a year in the planning so we were definitely looking forward to this one.

Lana and Mike are on this mega-couple-of month’s-trip over to Europe from Oz and as part of it they planned for two big mini-holidays – Egypt and Lapland. Two holidays which probably couldn’t have been more in contrast with each other and nowhere was it more obvious than in the temperatures: 30+ degrees in Egypt and neg 30+ in Lapland!

We had a pretty big itinerary set for this trip and as we were doing it all on our own (that is not as part of an organised tour) and without the use of a car all the bits and pieces (buses, taxis, trains, planes etc.) really had to come together to work out.

Thankfully it all came off without hitch … except that we didn’t see as much of the Northern Lights as we would have wanted despite having practically perfect conditions for it and despite wishing desperately to see them!

Photos photos photos.

The Experience

Day 1 – Helsinki

We started our Lapland journey with a day spent in Helsinki. Interestingly despite the fact it was day 1 of our trip we hadn’t actually really planned anything for our visit!

We only had the day to explore the city as we had to catch our overnight train to Rovaniemi later in the evening so in all honesty we couldn’t really do too much anyway. As we ended up spending a couple of hours in the hotel in the afternoon I’m thinking we didn’t find that much to do (plus the others were a little on the cold side. Heh heh!)

I suspect maybe that Helsinki is better as a spring or summer destination!

We were out walking for quite a while, however, and along the way we stopped in at the Christmas markets, one of the shopping malls, a tourist shop (where entertainingly I found tinned reindeer and bear meat and of course just had to play around with the hats/beanies), a long line for people waiting for the president (it wrapped around several blocks!), taking photos around Helsini’s symbol the Lutheran Cathedral, and finally stopped in for some Japanese at apparently Helsinki’s oldest Japanese restaurant.

Overnight Train from Helsinki to Rovaniemi

We wanted to make sure that as part of our trip to Lapland that we stopped in to Santa’s Village which is a short taxi ride from Rovaniemi. It seemed only fitting since we were going that way anyway and looking at the map Rovaniemi is just over halfway to Saariselka (which was going to be our ultimate destination.) In an effort to save money and log some greener miles on hotel fees/plane journey we decided to take the 12+ hour overnight train from Helsinki to Rovaniemi. Although I was able to get to a website in English to book our tickets there was still that little nervousness that we hadn’t booked the right type of ticket. We decided to spend a little extra to get berths with their own private bathroom which was something like an extra €5-€10 and in the end tickets were about €95 each which I thought was pretty fair.

The overnight train was super cool. It was a very tight squeeze, especially for Lana and Mike with their giant luggage, but I thought the train was well designed considering the space that was available. I was most impressed with how the toilet converted into a shower. Though a bit annoying that the shower was kind of like a hostel shower where the water runs only for about 10 seconds at a time, the pressure and temp was decent and it was surprisingly not that difficult to wash my hair. The beds themselves have their own night light, electrical socket (!), clock and alarm. The berth was also very clean!

The train nearly thought of everything – there is even a berth for travelers with dogs!

Day 2 – Santa Claus’ Village and overnight at Lainio Snow Village

Santa Claus’ Village

We arrived at Rovaniemi train station exactly as scheduled at 7.53am. Santa’s Village technically didn’t open until 9am and the public transport bus (No. 8) wasn’t running until 10am so we had a little time to kill. There was a bunch of taxis that were at the station just after we arrived but we thought that we’d rather stay at the train station for a bit to stay warm and then grab a taxi a little closer to 9. It wasn’t the greatest of moves because after that we saw no taxis! Finally Lana was able to call for a taxi for us.

It was kind of weird to be visiting the Village because the sun hadn’t risen at that time and in fact it didn’t even start to “rise” until about 9.30. The Village sits on the Arctic Circle which is a line which marks the point on Earth at which the sun doesn’t rise at the winter solstice or set at the summer solstice.

Let me say at the start that Santa Claus’ Village is really a commercial venture e.g. we paid €25 for an A4 photo with Santa and €6 to visit the huskie park (my favourite part of the Village.) Most of its business probably comes from those doing a day trip from England where no doubt for a ridiculous amount of money you can pay for a flight to and from the area to visit the Village in a day. The beauty of the Village is that there is no entrance fee so you only pay for the activities that you want to indulge in like riding the reindeer, going for a huskie slide, snowmobiling or visiting the ice sculptures (if there are any.) There is also Santa’s Post Office where you can send a postcard to home or friends, nearby there is a theme park (which is also an extra charge) and there are a ton of souvenir shops.

We were done after a couple of hours and that’s only because we stretched out the visit to the Huskies (they are very loud and bit smelly but the puppies were sooooo cute – they kept licking and chewing on my fingers!) and had some lunch! Oh and mucked around a bit in the Post Office – it was very very busy in there!

Lainio Snow Village

Planning on getting to Lainio Snow Village from Rovaniemi without a car was difficult. I ended up working out that the best option for us was going to be catching a bus to Kittilä, which seemed to be the biggest city near the Snow Village, and then taxiing it from there. This was all determined after numerous emails to various tourist sites and information points. Once again I had to trust that the bus I was booking online for us and from a translated website would be there when we needed and that we’d be at the right station. The fact that there was only one bus was also a bit worrying – I didn’t really fancy us paying for a two hour taxi ride. Thankfully it all worked out. And even better our bus driver, who didn’t even speak English, understood we needed a taxi when we got to Kittilä, called one for us with his own phone and stayed with us until it arrived. How nice and helpful!

Lainio Snow Village was another 30-40 minute taxi ride (or about €60-€80) from Kittilä. The taxi driver could have been taking us anywhere but I liked the driver we had as he even switched off the meter once it got to a round number.

So why were we willing to go to so much trouble to go the Snow Village? Well, its because we, in particular I, wanted to sleep in an ice hotel/ice igloo. The original icehotel was located unfortunately a little off our path so we decided we’d try out Lainio, which is a fairly young development (this is the 9th year.)

It was still early on in the season when we got to Lainio so we were nearly practically the only guests staying there (there were a few others visiting on a day trip and a few others staying over night) so it was kind of cool (pardon the pun) to practically have the place to ourselves. The only drawback was that they were still developing the complex so some rooms were incomplete. Still, we managed to entertain ourselves sufficiently.

At Lainio you can stay in a suite or a simple room. The difference is that the suites have extra designs and the simple rooms are a room with beds only. It’s a hefty fee for either room but you can also visit the village by paying a €7 entrance fee. All rooms are available for public access until 10pm so you don’t miss out if you aren’t staying there or if you only go for the cheap room as you can go into every single room.

The structure of the village changes every year apparently and this year’s theme centred around a kind of four seasons theme with a water, forest, fire and ice (my descriptions) halls and areas. The whole snow village consists basically of series of igloos all interconnected together. They have an ice bar/ice restaurant as well as a wedding chapel. Outside they have giant snow carvings of animals, think they were mostly huskies but there was a bear and santa outside as well, and ice slides.

As you can imagine we spent hours running around taking photos!

After we’d exhausted ourselves taking photos we decided to have dinner in the ice bar/ice restaurant. For the most part as long as you kept your warm clothes on it wasn’t too bad as the ice tables and benches are covered by reindeer skin (though they were a bit smelly!) however food got cold very quickly and after a while, despite trying to warm up with alcohol (I had a delicious mint chocolate cocktail) we all started to feel the cold – even me!

To warm up we headed to the warm room. For those planning to visit the village and have an overnight stay and you don’t think you can handle the cold in your igloo (it gets to about neg 5 in the room) there is a warm room which is heated by a lovely fireplace (and this is also where the toilet is) where you can escape to. However, and there is a big however, you will probably freeze before you get there! The room is about a 3-5 minute walk (how quick depends on just how cold you are! Ha ha!) from your room but before you go to bed down for the night they suggest that you take only your thermals and one layer on top so if you want to dash back you won’t be wearing much. You’re supposed to leave the coat behind – I think its because the room is pure ice so if you bring anything other than what you’ve got on it is likely to get wet and icy. You could probably try and put your coat at the bottom of your sleeping bag if you’re really keen to keep it with you. The bed itself is not ice but a mattress and a mattress protector but the bed frame is made of ice so if you move around too much you’re likely to find yourself dozing on ice! You’re given a thermal inner lining and a sleeping bag as well. Once I had my beanie and gloves on I was perfectly snug all night and in fact at one point slept out of the thermal because I was sweating! Pat, who has less, ahem, insulation and not as good circulation as me, said he felt a little cold by morning.

Daylight at the village brought new fun in the form of slides and tubing runs!

Day 3- – Travel to Saariselka

We were starting to get the hang of travelling by bus and taxi now so we were pretty cool about the next leg of our journey – to Saariselka – our ultimate destination and where we stayed for about a week. The taxi ride back to Kittilä was more expensive (€20 more than the day before!) which was a bit of a shock but gladly our bus was at the train station waiting for us even though we were rather early. In another display of friendliness the bus driver got us to come sit on the bus so we could stay warm. She was very friendly. The trip from Kittilä to Saariselka (changing buses halfway) was three hours which we spent mostly sleeping though I did try to stay awake to keep an eye out for the reindeer scattered around. Shame we were going too fast and the light conditions were a bit low to get a proper snap.

We chose Saariselka over all other leisure destinations in Lapland as we thought it gave us the balance of remoteness but still having enough activities and diversions to occupy us for a week. Remoteness was to increase the chances of seeing the Northern Lights – as we all know the more built up an area is, the more lights that will be on and the less chance you’ll see anything in the sky.

Arriving at Saariselka we were very impressed with the flat that we had hired – in addition to the sauna it had a giant bathroom, comfortable lounge, nice kitchen, two toilets and three bedrooms with room to sleep eight people. We even had a cake mixer! Heh heh! We loved it. The best thing was that bits and pieces like toilet paper, dishwashing detergent, handwash, toilet bags etc. were supplied. It also had a fireplace but none of us could work out how to use it. When Pat and I tried we nearly smoked the house out. Oops! Still, the central heating worked a treat.

Day 4 – Reindeer Ride and Snowmobile Northern Lights Tour

There are heaps of activities that you can do in Saariselka, or in the snow I guess, but because at this time of year there isn’t a lot of daylight and because its so cold you don’t tend to stay outside too long you don’t really end up cramming a lot into the day. Having said that I still felt that our days were quite busy though we did spend an inordinate amount of the night time hours looking and waiting for the northern lights to appear!

After a big sleep in on our first day to recharge for the week we spent the first day walking around a bit and booking some excursions. We’d tried to look up some tour companies before arriving and there a few companies around though Top Safari, with whom we ended up booking most of our excursions, seems to be the big one. I don’t know if they were the cheapest company but certainly we had no complaints about them and they were very good and being flexible and helping us with our tours and even giving advice on the northern lights (though as it turns out the northern lights were a bit shy this week!)

Our first tour was a Reindeer Ride. For €100 you get to in a reindeer sleigh for about an hour and the whole tour lasts about two hours which includes the transfer to the reindeer farm, coffee and cake and a bit of a lesson on reindeers and what happens on the farm. They market it as an opportunity for you to “drive” the reindeer and to get an “international reindeer driving licence” but in actuality all you do is sit on the sleigh – the reindeers just drive themselves!

The tour was nice and all and very peaceful but an hour on the back of a reindeer sleigh was just a little bit too long! 15 minutes could have done us especially as we didn’t need to do a thing on the back of the sleigh and the reindeers were quite slow. I liked the talk by the lady who lives at the farm though and at the end when we were waiting to drive back to town she even got us to practise our herding skills (on a wooden reindeer though …) Its interesting to realise just how great the spatial awareness that reindeers have in taking account of the space around their antlers – she says if the reindeer doesn’t like you they’ll deliberately brush a tree to get snow to dump on you!

The forecast for the evening was cold and clear which are some pretty decent conditions for seeing the northern lights. We booked on to a northern lights tour on snowmobiles to get away from the lights of the town to increase the chances of seeing them. The tour is €115 p.p. for two people sharing a snowmobile or €155 for singles. The trip is 2-2.5 hours though our tour guide was really good and took us out for a bit longer to try and find the lights. Sadly we didn’t see them but Pat and I did have fun trying to get our snowmobile to go as fast as we could – think our top speed was something like 60 kms?) It was pretty thrilling to do this in the dead of the night! Being on the snowmobile was bloody freezing even with our ski gear on plus the snowsuits but the handles were heated which was pretty funny! The hot berry juice at our midway point was very much appreciated.

Day 5 – Cross-Country Skiing

Day 5 was one of our physical days with a few hours of cross-country skiing. For €35 you get a 1.5 hour lesson and then you get to keep the skiis for the rest of the day. It was exhausting but so much fun! I’ve only done it once before and I’ve gone down-hill skiing a couple of times so it wasn’t totally unfamiliar for me. It was the same for Pat though he was noticeably more skilled than me. It was the first time for Lana and Mikie and they did pretty well once they got the hang of it.

Cross-country skiing in Saariselka was clearly a very popular activity for the locals if the number of people flying by us was any indication. Plus they have a dedicated series of trails which stretch on for kilometres for those fit and keen enough. At the end of the lesson we’d travelled about 600 metres and though we could have followed our instructor back to the beginning it was so beautiful out there skiing that Pat and I decided to continue on the trail.

We ended up making it to Laanila which was the next pit stop and 3.4km from the beginning. At one point I got so eager trying to go fast that I took a most exciting tumble as I trapped my ski pole under my skis! Pat said it was really funny because one minute I was up and the next I was down. He reckons he didn’t even see what happened I fell over so quickly. Heh heh.

Everyone who knows me knows I’m freakily warm at times and whilst we were skiing my hands got really hot so I had one glove off for most of the skiing. Hilarious all the Finnish people kept stopping to ask me if I was alright with my one glove and asking where my other glove was! They could hardly believe that I was exposing my hand like that! (It was neg 16 ….)

By the time we turned around to get back home I was seriously getting fatigued but there was nothing to be helped but to concentrate on getting back through the 3.4kms. The downhill moments helped but for the most part it was a hard slogged. I definitely felt like I’d earned my dinner that night.

Day 6 – Tobagganing

On Day 6 Lana and Mike headed off to the glass igloo village which is about 13 km from Saariselka. Pat and I decided to explore a bit of Saariselka a bit more and we ended up at the foot of a 1.2km toboggan run located at the Downhill Ski Centre. Dotted all over Saariselka, mostly resting against hotel or resort walls, you’ll find sleds. Free for anyone to use we found that they came well in handy whether for carting our luggage around, for carting our supermarket shopping around, carting each other around and even more importantly for use down the toboggan run.

For our first trip up to the top of the slope we took the ski lift. We were the only ones on it and in fact there wasn’t even anyone managing it at the bottom. We realised the dilemma of catching a ski lift without skies – when you get off at the top you have to almost try leaping then running straight away otherwise the ski lift will catch you in the back of the legs and there’s the risk you won’t be able to get off. Luckily there was a person at the top of the lift who slowed it down a bit for us! In fact you can get to the top of the slop by catching the ski bus (€4 to use all day) or even walking up the slope.

We’d chosen a particularly cold day it seemed to do the toboggan run so before we set off down the run we warmed up with some snacks and hot chocolate at the Huippu restaurant. Brrr! So cold! I just about froze my fingers off trying to take photos whilst on the ski lift. The only blessing is that we were the only ones on the toboggan run!

You’d think by the photos that we were up there early in the evening but it was only 2pm!

I was extremely nervous before starting the run. All we really had were these plastic sleds – no safety equipment of any kind and the snow looked very fast! Pat got me to go in front of him so that I wouldn’t freak out if I got left behind but he soon went flying past me when I careened off to the side and into a snow bank. It was sooo much fun but scary at the same time as I had no idea how to slow down, let alone stop, or even turn! My advice is to cover every part of your face and wear ski goggles as a lot of snow gets kicked up!

At about the midway point there is a natural slow down point as the slope levels out and from the fencing it was obvious lots of people stopped to leave their signature. So Pat and I did the same and then it was on to the bottom half of the slope which was much scarier as it seemed much faster but also there seemed to be more potholes (like moguls).

Day 7 – Bark of the Huskies and overnight at the Glass Igloo

Before Pat and I headed off to the glass igloos we fit in another tour – this time a 2.5 hour drive with huskies (€130). Even better than our reindeer ride you actually get to drive the huskies yourself and it was much faster! Driving the huskies is a lot more hard work than you imagine – I found stepping in the brakes difficult (at one point the dogs were still dragging me!) and also sometimes you have to get off the sled to help the dogs by running behind it instead of on it! It was great fun though I do admit that I let Pat do most of the driving!

Huskies are, mostly, incredibly loud animals. They are constantly barking and shouting at each other. They are also always constantly jumping around and trying to go go go though some of the more experienced dogs know to relax when they can. Like the huskies we rode behind in Are they are also very skilled at going to the toilet on the run! Halfway through the journey we stopped for a break for some reindeer salami and tea in a room with a giant fire. I went outside during the break to play with the huskies naturally. They’re beautiful creatures. A little girl followed me out and I could see that she really wanted to play with the huskies but she was only as big as the dogs and though she wasn’t afraid she was a bit nervous about approaching the loud jumping playful dogs. Encouraged by the fact I hadn’t been eaten by the dogs, ha ha, she came forward to pat the dogs. It was so cute – she was so gentle about it!

You aren’t really instructed much on what to do on the sled in terms of driving it though you are told that its important to not let the sled get too fast and to stand on the brake when you’re at a stop. Unfortunately there were two accidents during our trip though no one was hurt luckily. The driver of the sled in front of us must have lost concentration and fell off the brake and consequently off the back of the sled so the huskies took off! Our instructor chased with a snowmobile and it was quite impressive how he jumped off the back of it and on to the sled. The second accident happened behind us! We were going very fast across a practically straight bit of the path though it did have some twists. The sled behind us must have hit a bump on a slight curve which caused the sled to tip over! Talk about excitement!

After the huskies Pat and I caught the ski bus to Igloo Village Kakslautanen for an overnight stay. During winter the village has a number of snow igloos for sleeping along with the usual attractions of ice gallery, bar, wedding chapel etc. but most interestingly they have these glass igloos which are great fun to sleep in. Though the benefit of the glass igloo is that you can see the sky above whilst laying in the comfort of your bed they also do a lot to make it as comfortable for you by ensuring the igloo is well heated and that your bed is super comfy – you can adjust both the head rest and your legs to whatever position you’re happy in. Ingeniously they’ve also somehow tucked away a little toilet and sink at the back of the igloo near the entrance.

Just note, however, there is no tv or anything to entertain. Yes the sky is beautiful to behold above you but watching that constantly for a few hours might just get a little tedious! Pat and I entertained ourselves with movies on his laptop. It was nice and relaxing. Oh – also be warned that everyone can see into the igloo!

We didn’t see the Northern Lights but it was still an interesting sleep. It almost felt like we were sleeping out in the open only it wasn’t neg 25 in our room … LOL!

Day 8 – Our last day

On the way home from our stay in the Igloo Village Pat and I decided to have another stab at the toboggan run. This time I was better prepared bringing along my goggles and my ski gloves. There were a lot more people doing the run this time around though most of them were hanging around the bottom half. This proved to be a bit problematic as it meant that the potholes which were just small bumps a couple of days before were now pretty big and when I came through them, as I was also going that much quicker, it was inevitable that I’d get into some trouble. The first sign of trouble was when I hit the first hole and my goggles flew off and I hit my head on the ground behind me. I somehow kept picking up more speed and after bumping through a couple more holes I hit the mother of holes and flew right off my sled! Yeah – I gots me some bruises from that!

We were pleased that our names were still there at the halfway point! Heh heh.

The Eats!

I was so super impressed with the eats during our trip that I think they all deserve a special mention. Lainio
Snow Village this is where I tried moose, or so the dude said, for the first time. Its also where I had the most amazing soup I’ve ever tasted – a Reindeer flavoured mushroom soup – I don’t know if it was because I was feeling chilled at the time and the soup going down was a perfect remedy but it was just stunning. Strong mushroom flavour but not in a bad way. Drooling just thinking about it!

On our first night in Saariselka we ventured to the most famous restaurant in town: Pirkon Pirtti (though I don’t know what the claim to fame is – we did end up coming here twice during our week in Saariselka so I’d say it was pretty popular with us!) The patron was hilarious – she had the biggest laugh I’ve ever heard and she was so cheeky! She brought a giant candle for Mikie as it was his birthday. So funny.

I liked the fact that the restaurant served both Pizza and Lappish specialties. On my first visit I couldn’t go past the mushroom soup and, to try another new meat, sauteed reindeer, mashed potatoes, pickled cucumber and lingonberries -apparently Lapland’s version of shepherd’s pie. Servings were absolutely huge and I couldn’t get through my meal. Poor Pat had to finish it off. The second time we went, which was our last night in Saariselka, Pat and I shared a pizza to start (Aslak: double-smoked reindeer, peach, blue cheese!) and this time around went for a lighter dish in a seafood option: a simple herbed crusted arctic salmon served with a sh!tload of potato. Yummy though I left most of the potato behind – probably because I kept helping myself to Pat’s dinner which was a fish plank (which is what Lana had on our first night.) It wasn’t the fish so much I was in love with on his plank but the morel sauce. I can’t say enough how gorgeous all the mushroom dishes are in Lapland weather they be soup or sauce!

Continuing on with my theme of trying random meats at Restaurant Petronella, one of the even finer dining restaurants in Saariselka, I decided to try the sautéed bear served with mash and carrot. I laughed about the fact our napkins were practically the size of the table but I didn’t laugh about the fact I couldn’t finish my bear – even despite the hard day I’d had cross-country skiing nearly 7kms! The bear was very similar in consistency to the sautéed reindeer and in fact the plating even looked the same! Reindeer on the left and bear on the right:

The food at Petronella was pretty fine – Pat’s dessert was even served with a square of gold foil!

I broke my seeming meat obsession when Pat and I went to the restauraunt at Hotelli Riekonlinna. This was another restaurant priding itself on fine dining – we were given an amuse bouche, which was a surprise, of some sort of malt bread with a yoghurty/tartare source. Pat and I had started to lesson by now in terms of how filling the Lappish food is so we decided to share our starters and go for something light for our dinner (crab and fish respectively.) The starter of deep fried cod tongue with lime aioli was certainly something different (though a little only the oily side for us) but I liked my wild arctic char fried in lemon butter and supported ably by a crayfish sauce. The potato terrine used to bulk up the dish I could have passed on. Strangely the potato is the one ingredient which is not dealt with very well in Lapland. Pat had a gratinated leg of king crab, hollandaise sauce but it was the mushroom risotto that this crab was served on that I really liked. So in love with Lapland mushrooms! Of the Lappish cheese baked in cinnamon cream that composed my dessert – I hated the cheese (reminded me of haloumi of which I’m not a great fan) but loved the cream.

Saariselka wasn’t about fine dining every night. In an effort to save some money we decided to take advantage of the kitchen and do some home cooking. This was mainly for our lunch but for a couple of dinners we also beefed up a couple of instant noodles and pastas to make quite satisfactory dinners. I think we ended up in the supermarket every night whether it was buying groceries or snacks (like ice creams and popcorn!)

Leaving Lapland

We had a few problems actually getting back to London at the end of our holiday. It was like Finland didn’t want us to leave! We had heard about the snow in London and were worried that this would delay our arrival into Heathrow with the possibility of the runway being shut down however we should have worried about taking off. Our flight between Ivalo and Helsinki went off without a hitch – in fact it was possible that we arrived in Helsinki earlier than expected. Plenty of snow was falling in Helsinki however we were confident that the airport could handle it after all it must surely be used to such conditions.

Apparently not.

Our flight was initially delayed for about half and hour. We weren’t provided an explanation for this delay but we know we certainly didn’t board until about half an hour after we were supposed to take off. I suspect it had something to do with trying to get other passengers on to the flight who could not get to their own airport such as Manchester which had apparently been shut down.

Unfortunately this delay caused the snow and ice to accumulate on the plane. We therefore had to wait for a de-icing and undergo this process. This led to us missing our departure slot. This in turn led to us sitting on the tarmac for an additional time which meant that the de-icing had worn off! We underwent a second de-icing but unfortunately this failed after 5 minutes. A third attempt was made. By now it was 2.5 hours after the original scheduled departure time.

At least we did eventually make it home but many many hours after we should have got there.

Last Words

Throughout our stay in Saariselka the snow was constantly falling. I loved seeing all the snow everywhere and the temptation to just dive into it was just too tempting. It was fab!

We all for had such a great time in Lapland with all the fun things we did and the great company. It just goes to show that planning does really pay off and I’m quite happy that we were able to do it pretty much independently. Though I’ll be paying off this holiday for most of the year, ha ha, I’m very glad we did it and that we took advantage of all the activities that we could. Its just a shame that the Northern Lights didn’t make an appearance!

I guess I’ll have to try and find them again … maybe in Northern America next time?