Our plan to take the slow road to Tromsø didn’t work out, as the overnight stops we’d earmarked just weren’t suitable – either lay-bys which were too close to the E6 road, or a place off the E6, but situated in muddy puddles – so we ended up on a fairly long drive from Burfjord … Read more
Leaving Nordkapp mid-morning, we had no plans other than stopping off for the night somewhere along the road towards Alta. We didn’t drive past anywhere particularly appealing, though the dreadful weather didn’t help, and so we ended up driving directly to Alta. The roads in Norway are good, and outside of the towns every other … Read more
We’re now at Nordkapp which, at 71° 10′ 21″, is the most northerly point in Europe. It was quite a long drive to get here, along the fjord and then through tunnels and across the mountains. Even on a wet, grey day, the scenery was wonderful. The landscape here is very rugged, and the people … Read more
Yesterday we left all the excitement at Santa Claus Village, and drove 250 km to Saariselkä. Driving in Finland has been a pleasure: the roads are in great condition, there’s not much traffic at all (there are more saunas here than cars remember!) and we’ve not seen any aggressive driving. There are loads of speed … Read more
A two and a half hour drive brought us here to Rovaniemi, and we’re parked for the night in Santa Claus Village, right on the Arctic Circle. Roy Wood and Wizzard sang “I wish it could be Christmas everyday”. Well they need to move up here, because here it is Christmas every day. Christmas songs … Read more
Ii (pronounced ee) may well turn out to be the shortest-named camperstop on our travels. It could also come in very useful in a quiz if asked to give a place name made up of vowels only! We’re spending a second day on a campsite here, catching up up with the laundry, fully charging up … Read more
The gateway to the Kvarken Archipelago is the Replot Bridge which, at just over a kilometre, is Finland’s longest bridge. The scenery crossing the bridge looked beautiful on this glorious sunny day, with lots of small islands dotted around the deep blue sea. The whole archipelago, comprising 5,600 islands spread over some 200,000 hectares, is … Read more
First stop on Saturday was Uusikaulunki, a small town on the coast. The car park overlooked the river, and there were quite a few small boats chugging up and down. From a distance the town looked quite pretty, with a couple of tall church spires, but there really wasn’t much to see or do. After … Read more
We went the long way round to get out of Helsinki, so as to avoid driving through the city centre again. The motorways here are great – zero congestion, and a road surface as smooth as the runway at Heathrow, with not a pothole to be found. We’d expected to be driving along flat roads … Read more
I’d booked the early afternoon ferry to Helsinki so that we wouldn’t have to get up ridiculously early, though we still had to set the alarm for 07:00. After stopping off for some groceries and filling up with diesel (which is more expensive in Finland) we arrived at the port with plenty of time to … Read more