Author: Annikki

This time we are heading to the southern coast of Baltic sea and coastal small towns in Germany and Poland. Pekka, my husband is my travelmate. Three problems arouse, just before and early during the trip. But all the problems were solved with the help of friendly experts.

My tooth broke, savior was my skilful dentist Thomas from Providental who started his day one hour earlier and could take me in quickly.

Interrail ticket can only be in one device at a time and both our tickets were in my tablet . When in Stockholm I realized there was no mobile connection and tickets could not be opened. The savior this time was Operator’s customer service. Tablets with only 4g did not find new connections automaticaĺly and after some steps connection was found and tickets saved.

Pekka’s bankcards did not work. Some faint idea told me that there could be self-made limitations and he could change it.

After these small obstacles morning coffee at Stockholm railway station tasted good. Solving problems is actually rewarding and you cannot avoid them when travelling on your own.

I had still two weeks left of the two month’s interrail ticket. I was interested in Malmö, inspite of its reputation. In Finland we hear the news of shootings in Malmö and we have watched the police TV- series Thin Blue Line, which describes the police work in Malmö. However, Malmö showed me its friendly faces. It is lively modern city with beautiful parks, canals, nice cafes, theaters, beaches, and interesting museums. One example of the friendliness of people was when I wanted to buy mittens from Christmas sale on Gustaf Adolfs torg, I did not have local money and they did not have a card machine. They just gave me the mittens and asked me to pay at a shop on another place Lilla torget. Could that ever happen in Helsinki? I staid in Teater hotellet near Triangeln train station. From there were frequent connections south and north, so I could spend a day in Lund and Copenhagen. In Lund I visited the great cathedral and there happened to be a midday service with music and some prayers for Ukraina. In the historical museum the story of Lund university from year 1666 just a few years younger than Turku university was illustrated. I also saw Kulturen, the outdoor museum that was like a small town, and a bookshop of course.

The actress as Hedda was familiar of the Police series, and that disturbed a bit.

I travelled also in Denmark. My classmate lives in Jylland countryside and her house was my base for a few days.

Stockholm has to be visited both first and last on a rail journey. There I could overnight at my friend Liisa visit a few photography exhibitions together with some Photography friends and finally take a ferry to Turku. Must say that getting from the Turku Harbour to Kupittaa railwaystation was the biggest challenge during my trip.

Central station was beautifully decorated

Back to Finland in November, after a week I am already missing the light and warmth of Italy.

During our last week we spent time in Palermo. There was hustle and a little too much everything after two and half weeks of travelling. It was lively, loud, pompous and shabby at the same time. Huge palazzos, theaters, fountains. Traffic with no rules, at least that is how it showed to us. Motorbikes pushed through narrow viccolos. Crossing the streets needed courage, but if you just go you can somehow zigzag over. Safest it was if you follow baby carriage or an elder with a cane.

We visited huge Teatro Massimo, opera house, with five storeys of boxes, King’s box, ceiling paintings and lamps of Murano glass. We found our way to Cappuccini catacombs and waited it to open after midday break at 3 o’clock. It is a cemetry of 8000 mummies in long corridors, most of them in standing positions. No photos were taken there. Visit to Norman palace with golden mosaics required lining up with hundreds of others. Near our living area murals of 27 victims killed by Mafia in Palermo were painted on a stone wall. Among them were authors, journalists, and several police officers. Locals told us that nowadays Mafia is no more killing people, but more focusing on economy. However, people on the streets were friendly and easy to contact.

From Palermo we took a night train to Rome. The quality was about the same as Snälltåget between Stockholm and Berlin, except only four beds in one cabin. We slept well on the narrow benches anyway. After those, the Finnish sleeping cabins feel luxury.

Rome felt really well organized after Palermo. It was clean, people followed traffic lights and streets had names written on the corners. We lived in a residential area in the northern part of Rome and it was pleasant to have morning coffees and dinners with local people away from the flow of tourists. But when in Rome you had to check some of the tourist attractions like Fontana di Trevi and Spanish stairs with thousands of others.

Small town Cefalu between Rocca mountain and Mediterranean gave us four peaceful nights, lively days and delicous fish meals. Allthough there were plenty of tourists you had a feeling of a small city as people were greeting and talking to each other. Old people , mainly men, sitting on benches and chatting with each other.

Pride of Cefalu is the Basilica built by the Normans. With its simple ruggedness it looked like a fortress. We climbed up to the tower and walked through a narrow corridor from northern to southern tower studied the mosaics the museum and small chapels.

Beach was easily reached in the middle of the town. Allthough the beach was full ot people, very few were swimming. For me the water temperature felt warm and pleasant.

Climbing up to the Rocca mountain was a must. Before entering the path you got a number and when coming back you had to inform at the registration. The path winded up the steep slope and climbing was hard in the sunny warm weather. View down to the town and Mediterranean was an award.

Our goal was Sicily, but on the way we stopped in Salerno, that was familiar to us from earlier journeys. For me it was actually third visit to Salerno and Amalfi coast. My favourite hostel Ave Gratia Plena, former cloister was unfortunately temporarily closed. Instead we chose a small bed & breakfast in old town. At common breakfast table was fascinating to meet people from different countries. During our short stop we visited old garden for medicinal plants Giardini Minerva. They serve delicious herbal teas and the plants are beautifully spread on terasses. Salerno is a good base to visit Amalfi coast small towns and islands like Capri and Ischia and ruins of Pompei, but now south tempted us. Some kilometers south of Salerno is Pattibaglia, which is mentioned in the novel of Waller, Madison Bridges, (Hiljaiset Sillat in Finnish). I was kind of curious as Robert Kincade in the book describes it as a beautiful place, which was also Franceska Johnson’s home town. I askel that from the B&B hostess, but she described it an ugly industrial town, home of mozzarella cheese. So we passed Pattibaglia, but I still wonder why the author wanted to mention it.

Ferrara is a modern lively town, streets are full of bikes, nearly everybody from kids to oldies cycle around. In Ferrara history is around you. Buildings from Middle age and Renesance are several and the whole town is protected by an old 9km long fortification.Savonarola,the Middle age strict reformist was born and studied here and the statue behind the castle reminds of him. The castle is surrounded by water, and carps are grown there. Before I saw one I thought they were small or middle sized fishes, but the one that showed up was a huge, two meters long creature with a wide gap.

Our hostess Laura adviced us three nice restaurants. You could get delicous three course meal and glass of regional wine with 25 Euros. Pumpkin and bolete were seasonal food served in different forms.

Ferrara is between Venice and Florence and it was an ideal place to stay for a few days. We made a day trip to Biennale where we visited Finnish, Estonian, Nordic, Danish, US, Belgium and Spanish pavillions. Venice scenery we only enjoyed during vaporetto drive through Grand canal to Santa Luzia railway station.

We passed to Italian side through the Brenner pass. Along the whole way from Innsbruck you could enjoy great mountain sceneries. We overnighted in Bolzano Bozen, which is a bilingual town with German majority. There is even a third language Ladin. Somehow bilingual places fascinate me, Guten Morgen Buon Giorno was greeting you could hear everywhere.

The pompous railway station building was from the fascism time built 1928. The influence of Eliel Saarinen’s Helsinki Railway station was mentioned.

Bolzano is famous for the Archealogical museum, where 5000 years old mummy of iceman Ötzi is kept. He was found early nineties and studied since that.

We overnighted in a big old Villa that served as a home of family Piha. Half of the Villa was reserved for tourists

Nighttrain Snälltåget to Berlin leaves from Stockholm 16.15, so we had time to spend in Stockholm. National museum and the fotoexhibition of Christer Strömholm was a good choice to spend extra hours. Museum also serves a proper lunch.

Our aim was to continue directly from Berlin to Nuernberg , but first train with free seats was in the afternoon so we had a few hours time to walk in the centrum and have coffee in Tiergarten. Except the memorial of Jews killed by Nazis, new to us was on the other side of the street memoriai of homosexuals persecuted under Nazism.

Nuernberg was a nice surprise, with its historical Old town, Albrecht Durer museum, lively atmosphere and lovely small hotei Franconia. We could not avoid eating Bratwursts in Historische Bratwurst kuche from 1419 and Wienerschnitzel the second day. Actually I only new beforehand that the Nazi trials in the forties were held in Nuernberg as well as the big party meeting in the thirties, but the great old history was a pleasant surprise.

Below are the photos, which were unfortunately taken by a tablet, my Canon was too heavy to curry during this trip.

On a ferry to Stockholm with Pekka my husband. I have sometimes said that I enjoy small adventures. The first adventure was at home one hour before we should leave home. I had activated our mobile interrail tickets in a new tablet, but could not remember the pin code that opens the device. The service adviced to return the factory reset, but the tickets would have disappeared, too. So I just had to believe in my intuition. I had tried all our normally used pin codes, but finally the code just came back to my mind and sesam it opened.

In the morning we admire the beautiful Stockholm archipelago, its villas and small oldfashion swimming huts on docks like in the Moomin world. Now ahead is a day in Stockholm and 16.15 Snälltåget night train towards Berlin.

My little red suitcase is now emptied at home. It performed well, although old and worn out, but the wheels managed all the cobblestone streets and stairs and the zipper could every morning close the fully packed suitcase. When I flew to London it was left to Helsinki as the tag had fallen away in the self service bag drop. Helpful officer in Heathrow could find it and next day it was brought to my hotel. After that it followed me through Southern England, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and finally over the Baltic to Helsinki via Turku.

In Sweden I stayed over night in historic town Lund. Old Cathedral Domkyrka was under reparation , but looked really respectable. Sunday morning was quiet when I walked through the town to the railway station. In a small park I found statue of Linnee, studying some plants.

Lund Domkyrka was closed but looked really respectable

The value of Finnish railways increased on my scale when passing Denmark and Sweden. DSB has removed the restaurant cars from the trains. Journey from Hamburg to Copenhagen was 6 hours with one hour stop at the border. In Sweden SJ had big delays both due to the reparation of railway tracks and bad condition of the engines. On my trip one train had to be changed between Copenhagen and Lund and two changes to buses between Lund and Stockholm. Waiting time for the second bus was more than one hour and my final delay in Stockholm was 3 hours, so no time for Fotografiska and no time for coffee with a friend. However, on a trip like that you have to accept changes. Luckily I could reach the ferry to Turku.