The 4-hour train trip from Helsinki to Vaasa was a very comfortable with pleasant views of the Finnish countryside and forests. Along the way I picked up the shocking fact that Finland has 10 trees for every person on the planet. Great vacation spot for a Treekeeper! Here are some views from the train.
Hoping these maps serve several purposes – showing distance and position of Helsinki and Vaasa, showing the language areas of Finland and that our trip has been in bilingual Finnish and Swedish areas, and introducing Björköby, our final destination outside Vaasa. Vaasa is the Finnish name of our destination, and it’s pronounced with some lingering over the double a’s in the middle. Like vah-ah-sa, but smooth so maybe vaaa-aaa sa.
We arrived in Vaasa and rented a car, then drove the 40 minutes across 4-ish islands to Björköby, where Ronan and Lena live. It was so fun to greet everyone and have the rest of the group arrive over the next hour or so. We then headed out for a walk to the salt tower.
Finland is very flat and the islands near Vaasa are low lying and pretty much rocks that have emerged from the sea. The land in this area is rising at 9mm per year, so people who have lived in the area their whole lives can see differences in the landscape, some rather dramatic like islands that exist where there used to be sea. There had been sone salt industry in the area so thus tower is called the salt tower, and it’s an observation tower with an amazing view all around.
We then took a really nice walk on trails that Ronan works at maintaining – really nice forest and plant life. The pine and earthy smells were lovely.
After the walk we drove to another island between Björköby and Vaasa for dinner. Ronan had an exhibit of his paintings at a gallery space in the same building so it was great to be able to see his most recent work! Really wonderful landscapes, and of sites that we’d just seen and some that we all knew (like Howth!) The box below is a field box for painters to bring into the landscape – it can hold paints and a canvas and attaches to a canvas. Ronan is starting to give painting lessons and this will allow him to take people outdoors to paint. He made these boxes and has 5 now!
Dinner was delicious – most of us had pike – and we went back to Björköby. Between the seeming daylight outside and excitement over catching up, everyone stayed up very late. Some people even stayed up extremely late! Here’s the day / night details this time of year in Vaasa.
