The Frogs hopped from Helsinki to Savonlinna, not to be confused with Savlon which is very different. Once again a UNESCO world heritage site (where isn’t these days?). Today was our first true taste of Scandinavian tourism. Basically, we weren’t there in July so everything was closed!!! The tourist season seems to be at most 6 weeks. Crazy fools like us arriving in late August were doomed, we watched the last lake cruise for the season set sail. A shame really as we would have loved to stay longer and enjoy the area more, but given that without a boat it’s really hard there was little option but to move on.
Restaurants Shut
Boat hire Shut
Boat cruises Shut
Ice cream stands Shut (except for the one in the garden of the hotel)
Campsites Shut
It’s a real shame as it’s a beautiful place. The Finnish lake district is stunningly beautiful and having driven around it (as much as you can) it is truly amazing. Maybe we have had exceptional weather this year, but it seems insane to have such a short season. One shop only opened the week of the Opera festival, yes 1 week / year. WTF, how does this economy work? I digress..
Today provided another privileged cultural insight. We got to witness locals washing their rugs. The Ladies of the village were out participating in communal rug washing. This is apparently an end of summer tradition whereby rugs are taken from the home and washed in big community washing tanks and then put through giant mangles to wring the water out. Sadly no pictures were taken of the rugs being washed to maintain the privacy of this tradition.
Nothing is ever simple 