The next day we visited Hameenlinna Castle and the Hattula Church. Hameenlinna is where Sibelius was born. Then we took a lake cruise from Lempaala to Nokia and had coffee and pulla on the boat. 'Twas good. Next on to Tampere, where we were met with great fanfare at the hotel by Paivi (dressed in Finnish costume) and Robert, our former Finnish language teachers here in Ithaca. It was great to see them. They joined us for dinner and took some of us for a short walking tour of the city of Tampere.
Stan and Laura Koskinen and I were having dinner at the hotel restaurant that evening and a black pigeon came into the restaurant! The waiters were at a loss as to what to do, so Stan the Chicken Man grabbed the bird by its wings and let it out the door. They gave him a free glass of wine for his trouble. Probably not the first bird he's ever caught!
From Tampere we drove to Muurame and visited the Sauna Village there. There were many old, old saunas. It was very interesting. We were in Kuopio that evening for dinner it was July 4. The kitchen staff brought out two cakes decorated like the American flag and had red, white and blue napkins and flowers on the table. We sang a couple patriotic songs. It made us feel at home.
We visited the studio of Eeva Ryynanen, wood sculptor, on the 5th of July. She is not working anymore, but we saw some of her sculptures, including one of Vainamsinen, a character from the "Kalevala", Finland's epic poem.
She also has built a beautiful chapel there with the pews hewn out of logs and log slices in the floor showing the rings of the tree. Some of the group actually talked with Mr. and Mrs. Ryynanen as they were sitting on the porch of their home, which is right there along with the buildings displaying her work.
We did get to hear Richard Koski and his son Jason play at the Raakkyla "Kihaus" folk music festival. The Sillanpaa family played also. We enjoyed it all immensely. Paivi and Robert appeared again, out of the blue!
The Kerimaki wooden church is the largest wooden church in the world and we were able to visit the inside. Then on to the Lusto Forest Museum in Punkaharju, which showed how important wood has been to the Finns, and the Retretti Art Center, where we viewed the artwork of Salvador Dali, which some of us enjoyed and some of us did not!
Some of us visited the Olavinlinna Castle in Savonlinna. They were having an opera there so we who didn't go inside watched the opera-goers going to the opera dressed in their finery. We also visited Porvoo and enjoyed walking in the old town and visiting the old cathedral.
A most beautiful and interesting place was Hanko, the harbour where most emigration boats left. We tried to imagine our forefathers getting on a boat and leaving all behind to come to America.
There are many other places we saw. I cannot list them all here, but it was a wonderful tour. We ate many delicious meals in hotels and restaurants and stayed in some very nice hotels, although it was very hot most of the trip and for the most part they were not air conditioned! We had an excellent tour guide and bus driver. Think about going when the next tour comes around! You will enjoy it as we all did.
