Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Scandinavia Day 7 Savonlinna and lakes

Day 7 was all about Lake country.  We went on a boat to Linnansaari national park for the worst mosquito walk ever and then we returned to Savonlinna to see Olavinlinna castle.  We lucked out again with the weather and had another perfect day!

We started with breakfast in our apartment.  We were pretty excited for strawberries!

Then we drove about 40 min to Oravi where we caught a boat to Linnansaari National Park which was an island

Lincoln enjoyed the boat ride

The park looks nearly identical to the boundary waters.  In fact the cafe worker said she even did an exchange program with BWCA workers so she had been to Ely

Once on the island we got Lincoln into the backpack and figured out the trail situation

We did the complete island hike.  First stop was this historic farm

From there things got really really buggy.  Like I probably had 20 bits on one shoulder.  Unfortunately it was too hot to put on more layers so we just hiked as fast a possible to get out oof the bugs

This overlook was one of the few non buggy spots.  Also more views like the boundary waters

See

I got to carrry Lincoln for the last 3/5 of the hike.  There was maybe a few less bugs, but much more up and down

Then we stopped at the little shop for lunch.  We had those small smoked fish.  I guess we are supposed to eat them whole (Lincoln ate a few like this) but I decided to pull the spines out because it was a little boney

Next stop was a canoe ride around the park.  Unfortunately this is where I dangled the already cracked open camera in the lake so we only have cell phone pictures of the canoe ride.  The camera did survive after sitting on the dock in the sun and spending the night in a bag of rice

Boundary waters?  Or Finland?

Lincoln loved dangling his hand in the water.  Luckily he was also pretty good about staying seated in the canoe

We made it back to the island to catch our boat back to Oravi

Then we drove back to Olavinlinna castle in Savonlinna

We caught the last tour.  Here is Lincoln being grumpy about not getting a long enough nap

View for one of the castle windows

Zach tried to carry Lincoln but we had to relent and let him walk/play cars.  Also this is room I left some blood in when I rammed my toe into the stairs trying to catch Lincoln.  I spent the rest of the tour trying to get my toe to stop bleeding

Great views!

One last picture with Dinky

After we left the castle we headed into Svaonlinna to have dinner at a fish place on the water

We had salad and fish and chips and clearly some local beer

We got back relatively early so we had time to watch the sunset

Then we enjoyed John Oliver with our local beers on the balcony before heading to bed.

Tomorrow is another travel day back to Helsinki with stops to see Sibelius sights!

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