It was time ... I left off the story of my long quest for combat shoes to bring to port my toes and I had to wait to get the photos from the trip in 1000 before finding the motivation to select and write all 80 ticket. It was long ...
Let us be clear: where is Karelia? If someone who has never set foot in Finland knows where it is I eat my trekkystar! Karelia is a Finnish region between Helsinki, Lapland south and the north. After the second world war russia has annexed a large part of today predominantly Russian region. It is considered the cradle of Finland, where tensions with Russia and the obstinacy of Finland to defend it at all costs. I'll come back in another post .... otherwise it will be long.
Not having enough time to go to Lapland and not wanting to spend days in the mud in the Great Lakes region, in the center of the country, we started looking for a cottage for rent in the area, hoping to find snow. He held our arms: 5 euros per person per night and photos that gave envy. The choice was made: Lieksa management. villa plus I finished the layout sorry for display issues
It took nearly 7 hours by train and bus to get there. It was long but it was fun in our two cabins, partly because the Finnish trains villa plus are equipped villa plus with electrical villa plus outlets which allowed us to leave the computer and speakers to cover the sound of chips.
The first day, lidl direction and tourist to find cool activities. A good hour walking in good humor, interspersed with breaks to take pictures, climb telephone poles, tobogganing, battles snowball pictures with snowmen decorated on the occasion of celebration of independence (I'll get that too ...), the statues of men or animals, or make snow angels, slides and climbing on pile of snow.
Hour stop at the tourist office to book activities. Initially we thought Koli go to the other side of the lake, but the ferry only work in the summer and it was too early to drive through on the ice. Not possible to do by dragging sled dogs, 20 cm of snow is not enough. Unfortunately the two ladies of the home does not really mastered English, which made us lose a lot of time, but were able to visit the store next door, hardware having radii 3 meters high and alleys 60 cm. I had never seen stores also messy, it was really impressive. Then return to the store to see where the others were, in the end we left happy to have booked an introduction to skiing in a national park the next day, cheap and out of the house. Departure for the lidl then, to refuel before returning to walk and play a little.
Which is well within the cottagefinlandais is that they all have a pontoon and a separate sauna house. Ours was not contrary to the rule, a pretty red cottage is located close to the pier. Icing on the cake, the sauna was heated with wood. You should know that city, forcing lazy, saunas are electric: Quick and maintenance-free of course, but as for barbecues nothing beats the embers. villa plus A priori it does not change much, it was still very hot when you put water on the stones. But the heat is really different, wetter was less toaster sensation of electric sauna. And then you see the flames of the furnace and must rajoutter wood, it's more lumberjack.
Another essential difference is that you heat the sauna wood, which takes about 2 hours, where you can take your time, wait on the dock, break the ice shot ax, pick wheelbarrows of wood or basins of water, it's still much more relaxing than turning a knob.
After having villa plus equipped, we went along the road. I had never been skiing, it's still good fun and very Finnish, villa plus quiet, anything. The ride was nice, although we had to stop every 500 meters to reform the group. We were not in a hurry anyway, except maybe guides. Reached the end of the journey, they offer us to go to walk around in the forest. We leave and walk for a little while, we cross the river on a bridge that moves and is mounted on the other side to stop in a space made for firewood. I may be naive but I avai
