It’s been a couple of days since we wrote an update, so I’d better get it down ‘on paper’ before I forget. Not that much happened really. On Friday morning, on our one full day in Palange, Greg went out for a walk around the village while I drank coffee and tried to wake up.
In the afternoon we went out for a drive around the area and as I was scraping ice off the windscreen, our host Petr came out for a chat. He’s a night-shift worker at a nursing home in the next town. Works 5 nights a week, and also runs his Airbnb accommodation & the attached campground (summertime only). There seems to be quite a lot of summer accommodation in the area as it’s close to an inlet, so there are lots of water-related and outdoor activities for locals and visitors. There’s some agriculture, but we’re not sure what else the locals do for work … maybe like Petr, they work in the larger towns around.
Petr recommended that we drive, then walk, to the highest point in the area, so that we could see the inlet and the surrounding countryside. We drove a couple of kms, then turned off and went down a road which is maintained by the military – there were radar towers and a few closed-up buildings, and lots of snow plough tracks. We walked a km or so to get to the top of the hill. Great view from the top, and the walk warmed us up.
Yesterday we were up and away by just after 8am, to head to Finnish Lapland and our next Airbnb accommodation, where we’re staying for the next week. We stopped for a smorgasbord brunch at Ikea at Haparanda, on the Swedish-Finnish border. And yes, we drove our Volvo there. The only thing missing was some Abba music to really remind us of where we are. Then across the border to Tornio to buy a local Sim card for internet data, which was the best deal we’ve ever had – EU25 for unlimited data for 30 days. Greg is in heaven!
We drove up the border on the Finnish side on the E8, which follows the mostly frozen Torne River for quite a few kms. Stopped for the obligatory photo at the Arctic Circle and kept on going to our Airbnb cabin in the woods & snow at Yllasjarvi. We had the usual minor hassles finding it in the dark and with minimal signage, but we eventually found it and were all settled in by 6pm. Really lovely place, we’re delighted with it all and very happy to be spending a week here.
Scrapping the Ice of the windscreen
Walking up the lookout
Stopping for the Reindeer
Sunset near the Arctic circle
Crossing the Arctic circle again
The river bordering Finland and Sweden
1kg of creamed rice for $2.50
I suspect scraping the windsheild is something very new to you. Lots of this going on here every morning in winter , although not from us as we have a carport and we don’t get the frost on the car.
What are you wearing on your feet as you obviously didn’t take snow boots with you ? Enjoy the snow!!! X
Margaret, we did bring snow boots with us. The day before we came here 3 years ago, we went to the Boxing Day sales and bought just about all the really warm clothes we own and paid hardly anything for them … thermals, boots, gloves, scarves & Greg’s blue jacket. I often wonder now what we would have done if we hadn’t gone to that sale, those clothes have been fantastic for these trips
I am pleased you can get some use out of your warm clothing (bargains ) you can’t get a lot of use from them in Australia !.
That’s what I call good forward thinking and I do like a bargain myself . xx
No, almost useless for us at home, but we’re always happy to loan them out to friends travelling to cold places xx
Interesting way to package creamed rice!
The Swedes do a great range of things in tubes. There was something else near the creamed rice but I can’t remember what it was now. I’ll check next time we’re shopping. And then there are all the sandwich spreads in metal toothpaste-like tubes. Loads of different flavours – I currently have a caviar tube and a prawn tube to spread on bread and crackers.
Do you know what this is the third time I am going to write a load of twaddle some one is out to get me don’t I will through something at the screen too costly but the joker with bear hands will get frost bite I do remember as a young man what fun it was to play in the snow but as a Plumber not good to many frozen pipes as for the Volvo Judy you can buy one just down the road from you in Adelaide at a price in my days having to serve my country as a Soldier which I had to do I slept beside a young man from the north of Scotland who I could not understand told he could see the NORTHERN LIGHTS He did not go on leave because it took him to long to get home
Sorry about technology not playing nice, Ron. I know, it’s a long way to drive a Volvo, but there’s something extra-special about driving it in Sweden. My dad had one in the 1970s and it had windscreen wipers on the headlights … which I now realise would be totally useless in snow, having scraped snow off quite a few windscreens now. They were definitely a novelty in Australia though.
You could buy an igloo in a box at IKEA ? Then take it home and have a fight trying to put it together !
It would be a long way to come back if it was missing an Allen key or a screw or 2!