Finland's Charmless Service Centre

Ever since I read the lonely planet's description of William's Lake as a charmless service Centre for the Cariboo, Leo  and I seem to be making a mission of finding its equivalent throughout the world, witness this winter.  The Rough Guide to Finland we're using as our guidebook is similarly less than kind to Rovaniemi, the gateway to Finnish Lapland.

But  we found Rovaniemi to be more than charming.   Most of old Rovaniemi was destroyed in WW2.  Now it's a clean, modern European city, beautifully situated on the banks of the Kemisjoki River.  Our campsite is right on the river too.

The campsite directed us to the fair going on in the old market, again on the Riverfront.   It was full of artisans selling Sami handicrafts like reindeer horn utensils, curved wooden boxes, fur mukluks with curved toes; traditional foods like fresh reindeer meat, salmon, plates full of tiny fried sardines,

delicious pastries, beautifully knit Scandinavian mittens.  There were live reindeer on display,

and kiddie teacup ride the parent powered by pedalling a bicycle.

Men dressed up in old army uniforms were selling camp coffee and Finnish pancakes

The music was modern though, improvisational jazz and rock and roll.


We walked along the river and back to our parked car through the city streets.

When we went to bed there was still music playing across the river at the old market, but again we both fell asleep right away.

Exotic junkfood of the day:  Bruner mansikka suukkoja (Sweet kisses).  Somewhat racist, but pretty delicious, these are the Scandinavian version of my favorite Scottish junkfood, the Tunnocks cake.  A wafer topped with strawberry-flavoured cream and coated with dark chocolate.