On day three of our Finnish Roadtrip we woke up in Tampere. We had realised a few days before that the Midsummer holiday was today. However, we were still hopefully that large department stores, restaurants and attractions would be open. Little did we realised that everything would be closed for the next three days. We still managed to fill our days as best we could with outdoor activities. We also made a stop in Jämsä before arriving in Jyväskylä.
Tampere
I had a couple of places in mind for breakfast. Apparently, Kaffila has the best third wave coffee, Vohvlikahvila has the best waffles and Fazer Café has the best brunch. However, since it was a public holiday today they were all closed. Luckily there was one place in town that didn’t let us down. The Tampere Market Hall/Tampereen Kauppahalli was open for business. I’m not sure if it was open all day, but it was first thing in the morning.
We bought pastries from pastries from Pullapuoti Wilenius. We got a Pastija Liha (pastry with meat), a Pastija Muna-riisi (pastry with egg and rice), a Berliin Munkki (jam donut with icing), a Mansikka Wieneri (strawberry and custard danish), and some Posso Munkki (donut balls) for the road. Not the healthiest breakfast, but we are still on holidays!
Luckily, the Tampere Cathedral also didn’t close for the public holiday so we were able to go inside. I heard that it has an amazing serpent roof that I was eager to see.
The Tampere Cathedral is a Lutheran church, which was build between 1902-1907. It was designed by Lars Sonck, in National Romantic style. It is known for its famous frescos, painted by Hugo Simberg and Magnus Enckell. Enckell painted the large altarpiece, which represents future resurrecion of people of all races. I am not sure if it was Enckell or Simberg who painted the long fresco that wraps around the walls. Simberg’s fresco sparked alot of controversy for its preceived wicked natures. This includes the winged serpent on the red background (ceiling) The Garden of Death (left corner) and The Wounded Angeel (top floor). Despite the modernity of this church, it is quite beautiful and the paintings are exquisite.
Jämsä
We originally intended to go from Tampere to Ähtäri Zoo. However, since there the weather was scheduled to rain and there were some renovations being done, we thought we would keep going to Jyväskylä. At this point we we still not expecting everything to be shut. So it seemed a good idea to skip the zoo. So we drove a more direct route to Jyväskylä, and made a tourist stopped at Jämsä.
Jämsä is a small town and part of a large municipality of Jämsä. It is know as the centre of Finnish aeroanutics industry. We stopped at a little kiosk on Vähä Valkeajärvi lake, just outside of town . This lake covers 11.7 hectares and is 850m in length and 300m in width. There is a picnic area and kiosk is open here in the summer and serves coffee and snacks. Since we only had card, no cash we weren’t able to get anything from the kiosk. I think this is quite common for these small kiosks, since they are only open for a few months a year. Nevertheless its a lovely place for a photo opportunity.
These photos were taken in the Jämsä countryside. The weatherwas just so gorgous and by now I was thinking perhaps we should gone to the zoo.
Another stop we made, a few minutes outside of Jämsä town centre was Juvenin Koski waterfall. This famous waterfall is 7m in height and is supposibly the highest and steepest free-flowing waterfall in Central Finland. To get down there we took a small flight of stairs then another couple of metres to see it mid way. Marco and Octavia went all the way down, but I prefered not to with my slippery boots. It was quite nice to see, but there was these enormous flying bugs, so we didn’t spend long.
Jyväskylä
The entire trip from Tampere to Jyväskylä took about two hours and by the time we arrived so did the rain. Jyväskylä is the largest city in Central Finland and Finnish Lakeland and is the fastest growing city in the country. It is known as the Athens of Finland, since its is the educational centre of the country.
We walked down the Kauppakatu pedestrian street to see if any of the shopping centres, department stores, boutiques or musums were open. Sadly we everything was closed. I’m sure this would be an amazing city normally.
So for dinner I originally planned to go to the viking themed restaurant, Viikinkiravintola Harald. They actually have a few locations, but I figured I would leave this dining experience for Jyväskylä. It was actually closed for the entire weekend.
There was only two places in town with open with food, the supermarket and Pancho Villa. I was’t that keen on Mexican food in Finland, but it seemed like a better idea then eating cold cuts on a cold night.
Pancho Villa is a Mexican chain restaurat, that you can find throughout Finland. They offer burgers, salads, Mexican classics, protein fillets and kids meals. They also cater for lactose free, gluten free and vegan. The decor was a little dated, but it was cosy place to have meal.
For dinner, Marco had the Cheese burger with fries and pickles, I had the Soft Taco (two vegan and two prawn) and Octavia had the children salmon fillet, chips and salad. We also recieved free corn chips and salsa. I have to say I was pretty impressed with dinner. For a chain resturant the food was relatively good quality and everything was really tasty.
After dinner we stopped by the supermarket and bought some fresh strawberries, raspberries and bananas for dessert. If your travelling in an Nordic countries you must buy the berries any chance you get. They are so sweet and have so much flavour.
We had our fruit salad in our Airbnb. I won’t recommend this particular acommodation because I didn’t really love it. In comparision to other places we had stayed it wasn’t the most comfortable and the bathroom was really old.
Tomorrow we travel to Kuopio and visit a zoo. Only three more days until this trip comes to an end…
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