In distant snowy Lapland
Frankfurt, +10 heat and rain, light jackets on, warm in a suitcase. All right, let's fly. Helsinki, it's already cool, -8, we get luggage, light jackets in a suitcase, warm ones for ourselves. We flew on, and here is Rovaniemi. A very cozy airport, decorated for the New Year, or is it always like that ...We went outside, -24, opened our mouths, and our breath froze. Here it is at last, frost! It was for him, and even for the snow, that we came here.
The express bus was seen right away, it is nothing more than a minibus that goes from Sheremetyevo to the station. River Station. A ticket to Rovaniemi costs 7.00 euros per person. The bus was already almost full, and we were still looking at everything around and wondering what we should go on? Then a taxi driver approached us and said that he would take us for 20.00 euros, we agreed, and he took it and turned on the meter, which wound up almost as much as 22.00. By the way, when we were driving back, a taxi was called in advance, it cost us already 30.00 euros, but for a call, however, almost a dozen.
So, we lived in apartments, review here: http://www.turpravda.com/fi/rovaniemi/Augusta_apartments-h38234-r80201.html
Many people already know that the city of Rovaniemi is located 8 km south of the Arctic Circle, at the confluence of two large northern rivers - Ounasjoki and Kemijoki. And most importantly, where the Arctic Circle is, Santa Claus lives there. We had 6 full days and excursions are scheduled for each day.
The next day was a little warmer, -23! We went to Lordi Square to the central information office for information. All your files with info. , with all the necessary and unnecessary, collected from all kinds of forums, I hid away for now. First question: does anyone speak Russian? - no, but there are printed brochures in Russian. And in German? Still, it is closer to us than English, yes, one such lady was found. They asked everything, found out everything, scored a bunch of prospectuses, we will think about where to order which excursions and move on.
Oh, yes, having read that after the New Year holidays, the prices for excursions drop significantly, which was not at all noticeable in the advertisements, for example, it stood there: winter 2012.2013, with the same prices, I decided to clarify this nevertheless, but is it possible to make some discounts on excursions, because it’s not the season, there are few tourists and stuff like that. The lady listened to me, smiled sweetly, and then said, no, these are fixed prices for the entire winter period!
Okay, let's move on, I have more than a dozen different kinds of tours on the list. office and all of them are almost in the center. Right there, the Safartica bureau is not far away, no one speaks Russian or German, although they took advertisements in all languages, they turned out to be exactly the same as on the square. Lordi. What happened in the end, all small tour. offices were closed indefinitely. We used the services of Lapland Safaris, which is located on Koskikatu 1, on the banks of the river.
And again no one speaks Russian, and only one young girl knows a little German. To my question: where did you study? At school.
EXCURSION No. 1: snowmobile safari in the taiga, we bought it for the next day, it costs 99.00 euros per person, if you are in a pair on a snowmobile, and if you want to ride alone, then + 39.00 more. We decided that we would be fine and in pairs. Duration 2 hours, from 14:00 to 16:00 in the afternoon. We were lucky, the temperature was slightly higher that day, -18! First we got equipped, then for 25 minutes we listened to safety precautions and so on, so the skating itself was no longer 2 hours, but less. But let me tell you, I love it! There were few of us, only 5 snowmobiles, fortunately no one “slowed down”, so we didn’t have to freeze. We drove along a frozen river, and through a snow-covered forest, crossed the highway, on a flat snow-white terrain, along the slopes of small hills with picturesque views. . and...and. . and. . Great, just what we wanted!
But that was all tomorrow, and today, having ordered the tour already described above, we went to the Arktikum Museum.
Excursion No. 2: Arktikum Museum. The entrance ticket costs 12.00 euros. I will not groan and gasp, the museum as a museum did not cause much enthusiasm, except that the building itself is a bit unusual for a museum. As expected, we went around all the halls, looked at everything, the so-called northern lights, I thought that they filmed the real northern lights and will show it in the form of a documentary, but in fact it was something like a cartoon with silhouettes of animals, with the image of a person ...I saw the real northern lights in Arkhangelsk, so what is presented in the museum only remotely resembles it. Well, you can also listen to the voices of northern birds and animals ...for interest, but not exciting. It's just that we are not special fans of local history museums, so to speak. And we didn’t visit any museums anymore, because the goal was completely different excursions.
Returning to the city center, we are looking for an institution for dinner. I take out my list of catering, the first thing that catches my eye is the pizzeria Golden RAX Pizzabuffet. It costs 9.95 per person, including drinks. Not to say that it's super tasty, not to say that it's bad, well, C grade! We didn't have dinner there again. I would like to note the fact that in Finland, with such a form of food as a buffet / buffet, drinks are included in the price. In Germany, I have not seen this, drinks are always bought additionally.
In passing, about telephone communication. We went to the R-kiosk for a SIM card for calls to Russia. The R-kiosk clerk also happened to be German-speaking. I showed him a sheet where the names of the sim cards were printed, he offered me a choice of 3: saunalahti, some other and helppo. All three were priced at 9.90, but the last one costs 5.90. To my question: why? Answer: discount. Well, since there is a discount, then of course, we buy helppo. Starting balance 12.
00 euros, but I can’t say for sure, because at first I called several times, then I found out that I didn’t know how to check the balance, a few days later I came to this kiosk again for an explanation, and when I checked the balance, it was already 9 euros from ponytail. I used the code 99599, for some reason other codes did not work. That was enough for me for the whole week, but of course I didn’t have hourly conversations.
Excursion number 3: a trip to Santadorf. Bus number 8, round-trip ticket costs 7.20 euros. The day, like the 2 previous ones, is cloudy, but already warmer, -12. There were almost no people, everything was calmly walked around, photographed, looked at, visited. There was no delight to the pig squeal, as they say in the reviews! But we spent the day with pleasure, firstly, we again plunged into the atmosphere of the New Year: decorated Christmas trees, New Year's tinsel, the sale of New Year's toys...
Santa's Residence! I imagined it differently, more fabulous!
"Ice palace with ice figures" so I read about IT in the reviews. Even approaching the entrance, to the modest door, the question arose, but where is the palace? He can't hide behind such an inconspicuous entrance. Entrance 12.00 euros per person. The bracelet is worn on the hand and you can go in / out as much as you need. It's decided, I'm going to investigate. Two doors, or rather two openings, I go into the first one, this is the Ice Palace, a room made of snow and ice, about 5X5, maybe a little more, it has 2.5 ice pieces; like in a bar, shelves with bottles, a counter. Well, yes, there is an ice bed here, covered with reindeer skins, tables, chairs, also with skins. Well, first I want to drink hot chocolate, yes please: 3.00 euros. How, and 12.00 euros for what? And this is only for the entrance and to enjoy all this "beauty"! I immediately feel that I no longer want hot chocolate. Okay, I'll go to the second opening, well, there must be something interesting there!
Two slides, one bigger, the other smaller, run in parallel, and a bunch of "cheesecakes", take it and ride it. And it's all! And no one is around, I'm alone! Having enjoyed enough of this "beauty" for 12.00 euros, I photographed everything, and for free, and said goodbye to this attraction. I immediately showed my pictures, so they laughed at me, I had not come across such a divorce for a long time. And I also persuaded everyone to go to this "Palace" all together.
Christmas House, souvenir shop, but if you go through it, you will find yourself in a restaurant, there is also a buffet, 11.90 per person, economical, but it does not taste at all! It was the tastiest dinner of our entire trip.
Jewelry in Taiga Koru, looked, not my taste. What else is there, ride reindeer, 10.00 - 400 meters, respectively, 25.00 - 1 km. It’s another 40 minutes before the bus, we walk again, admire nature, breathe frosty air, otherwise when else will we have to? !
It's amazing how snow lies on the trees here: the whole tree is shrouded in it, every branch, every knot, trunk, and you can't see it. And the snow lies so firmly, as if glued.
Further, according to the plan, riding in a reindeer and dog sled. I have a lot of records, but little sense: only small tours. bureaus have already closed, others only have email addresses and telephone numbers. In the evening, we looked at the sites again, some farms are generally far from Rovaniemi, and those that are at a distance of 50-70 km do not take tourists themselves. So you need to rent a car, and car rental specifically in Rovaniemi is simply “golden”. Having calculated all the pros and cons, we again went to Lapland Safaris.
Excursion No. 4 + No. 5: safari on a reindeer sled to the kennel of sled dogs. It costs 134.00 euros per person. Well, here we bargained a little, after all, we are already buying the second excursion from them, we dressed up for probably half an hour, in the end we agreed on 120.00 euros.
Saturday, we arrived at 10:00, there was no one else besides us, we got into a minibus and went to a deer farm, not far to go, about 20-30 minutes, somewhere near Santadorf. The day was wonderful, -4, a very comfortable temperature for such a walk. There was already a group on the farm, quite a large one, their instructor was talking loudly about deer, so if you don’t want to, you can still hear. Then they left, we were left there alone with the deer, which were really not very many, the rest were all taken apart for teams.
Never seen live reindeer before, beautiful animals, one is not like the other. Well, then we went in a reindeer team through the forest to a dog farm. Through the snow-covered forest, in the rays of the rising sun, I cannot convey this beauty with any words or photographs. I noticed one feature of how the sun rises here: it was dawning and the sun immediately begins to rise, so I at least observe through the kitchen window.
And here, it was dawning, I can’t say exactly what time, but at half past nine in the morning, when we left the house, it was already light. By the time we got to the bureau, by the time we got to the farm, by the time we were at the farm...it's been a long time. And only when we went in a team, the sun began to peep through, or rather its rays, I did not see the sun itself, as such. Such a pinkish-lilac stripe lay on the tops of the trees. If the road went through a dense forest, then this pink glow was barely visible somewhere beyond the forest. Depending on how the road twisted, it was either on the left or on the right. In places the sky was blue and clear, in places with pink clouds. The sun's rays fell only on the tops of the trees, not lower, because the sun was there, as it were, at the level of the horizon, maybe a little higher. Very rarely they broke through the trees, which then seemed pinkish in the reflections of these sunbeams, and it seemed that the sun then shone a little brighter.
Further, again in a reindeer team back to the farm, and again enjoy the winter forest. Arriving at the farm, it turned out that the tour would end 40 minutes earlier, taking into account the time for the return trip. This alignment did not suit us in any way, they began to discuss this with the instructor, and he replies that they almost always do this. But the fact that they almost always do this is of little concern to us, we want to ride through the forest for another 40 minutes. Softly, but persistently, with a smile, but persistently, we achieved our goal, we drove further into the forest. Since we didn’t manage to ride dogs to our heart’s content this time, at least on reindeer, especially since the weather and nature were very conducive to this. Then he drove us home, we gave him a tip, because everything was wonderful, and most importantly, we had great fun!
Looking ahead, I’ll say that we later arrived at this dog farm on our own, on another day, by bus number 8 and half a kilometer on foot.
We took about a 10 km race, something like an hour in time, bargained for 55.00 euros per person. What a pleasure it is! During this time, it was already possible to consider something, "both plains and forests. " We understood that such an opportunity would hardly ever be given again and therefore enjoyed it with all our hearts!
In passing, about shopping, usually on vacation in any country I don’t spend time on shops, well, except for small, souvenir ones. So it was here. True, one evening we went to the Sampokeskus shopping center, which consists of small shops. There are almost no people (I compare prices with Germany), interesting styles of shoes, sporting goods are somewhat more expensive, so nothing interesting. We went to the Prego cafe, cappuccino costs 3.90, cakes for 2.90, latte macchiato 5.20. Well, these prices are nothing, but in supermarkets everything is significantly more expensive. We bought mainly for breakfast, meat/cheese/salmon cuts, butter, apples...
in Germany, 15-20 euros is enough for me to buy for 3-4 days, buying products of approximately the same quality in Rovaniemi, fifty kopecks flew away. Well, fruits are more expensive, this is understandable, but all sorts of cookies, muffins ...that we buy at home are also 2 times more expensive. Airports are not comparable at all: all sorts of sandwiches in Frankfurt from 4.00 euros, in Helsinki from 7.00, specially looked.
And of course, we could not help but go to the Marttiini branded knife store. My husband picked up all sorts of knives as gifts for friends.
Well, the last excursion number 6: this is the Ranua zoo. Photos here: http://blogs. turpravda. com/hessen/80385.html
A bus ticket costs 27.90 euros round trip. We sat down at the bus station, which is a 15-minute walk from the apartments. Departure at 08:45 in the morning, we were at the zoo at 09:50. Back at 14:50 and in Rovaniemi at 16:10. Entrance to the zoo costs 13.00. On the advice of the "experienced" took an audio guide in Russian, headphone rental 10.00 + 20.00 deposit, when you hand over the headphones, respectively, the deposit is returned.
These are not headphones, this is one big misunderstanding! I'm not so sorry for wasted money, but my nerves. For what ears they are intended - it is not clear. There were three of us adults with different sizes and shapes of the ear, no one held on! Not even 2 minutes passed without them flying out. I pulled my cap down to my very forehead, completely covered my ears in order to somehow hold them, it’s all useless, as soon as I turn my head a little, the process has begun - they flew out. My men, after several unsuccessful attempts to hear at least something, put them in their pockets. I resisted some part of the way, but then my patience snapped.
But ask me now, what was told about the snowy owl or the musk ox? Nothing was remembered. If you wish, if anyone is very interested in this, all the information can be found on the Internet.
Well, that's all right. Most importantly, I really liked the zoo itself.
If you have already noticed, I generally liked everything where there is beautiful nature, a lot of sparkling snow ...and there is plenty of it all there, so we enjoyed it to the maximum. Equipped paths, and around the trees covered with snow. Even just to walk there, go around the whole zoo in a circle and that is a great pleasure for me. The total length of the route is 2.5 km, but in light frost, and in the snow that creaks under your feet, it doesn’t bother you at all, it’s a pleasure! In total, there are somewhere around 28-30 enclosures. We didn’t see all the animals, for example, the brown bear didn’t come out of the den to look at us, the beavers didn’t emerge from the water either, the wolverine hid behind the trees, the elk went far to the opposite fence, the musk ox didn’t get up to pose for the visitors. In general, you need to take binoculars there, the enclosures are so large, you can’t really see the animals.
After a walk, you can have lunch in a cafe there, also a buffet, I don’t remember exactly how much lunch costs, about 12.00 - 13.00 euros per person. Well, the food is okay, tolerable.
Liqueurs are not sold anywhere (again, the reviews misled me), only wine. And I so stubbornly explained that I needed liquor, well, others bought a year ago ... ? It turns out only in Duty Free, where we later purchased them. Of course, who often visits Finland can laugh at me here, but we had no idea that they had a so-called “dry law”. But now we know. Next, Faser chocolate, as for my taste, so our Moscow, or "Russia" or Swiss Lindt - much tastier. Even before this trip to the zoo, we tried some sweets and chocolates and almost didn’t like anything. If chocolate in the city costs 2.59, then there is 2.10, well, that's a little cheaper. I liked the dark chocolate with nuts and pears, all the rest not so much.
In the store itself, of course, the choice is large and the prices vary too, starting from 12.00 euros per kg of chocolate and the highest price I have seen is somewhere around 90.00 euros. But we didn’t buy such expensive sweets, the only thing I went broke on was a box of chocolates in 300 grams, the price per kg of which was 39.00 euros. (this is one of the expensive ones) We have already tried sweets, the conclusion is: this money is not worth it, for our taste. Basically, they bought their favorite chocolates with pears and nuts.
What else is there, a Lapland ice tent with ice figures, admission is free, various excursions can be ordered at the office, like everywhere else, deer, huskies, snowmobiles, etc. , a souvenir shop, a small ice slide, mur-mur castle, did not go up there, there was not enough time.
Having gone around everything, having looked at everything, having bought everything, satisfied and happy, we returned to the city.
A little about restaurants, we found the advertised Nili restaurant, looked at the prices, decided that we were not hungry.
Restaurant Rosso, not bad: salmon soup for three + 3 salads + 3 different main courses + 3 glasses of wine, everything was edible and tasty, the total amount of dinner is 95.00 euros. They didn’t bring wine for a long time, I had to go to remind, ...the used plates on the table interfered ... , they didn’t clean it for a long time, I didn’t like the service, I didn’t give a tip.
Restaurant Amarillo, somewhat cheaper, but the quality of the food is worse.
Restaurant La Festa, located a stone's throw from the apartments, on the street. Rovakatu, in addition to the restaurant there is a pizzeria / buffet. Cost 11.50. I was pleasantly surprised: relatively modern, very tasty pizza, venison of 2 types, stewed and fried, I liked the latter. As usual, different salads, and most importantly my favorite shrimp. I recommend this restaurant, not so expensive, nice atmosphere, delicious food.
Well, our short winter trip has ended, goodbye Lapland, goodbye Rovaniemi!
