Tour guides normally don't travel in summer, so as soon as our season slowed down a bit, we started to plan our trips. The first one was to Norway to visit my friend, who marries a Norwegian. It's easy for people in St.Petersburg to get a Finnish Shengen visa, so we decided to undertake a tour through Finland and Sweden by car and ferry.
We crossed the border at Torfianovka early in the morning, and headed for Turku, to get on the ferry to Stokholm.
Finland
Turku gives us some idea about the relaxed way of life in
Finland - very calm, very measured.
We walked in the Castle garden and strolled along the Aurajoki embankment while waiting for the Viking ferry.
left: Turku Castle has guarded the mouth of the Aurajoki River since the 13th century. It is one of the most outstanding examples of Finland's national heritage. The castle's heyday was in the mid 16th century.
| | |
Forum Marinum maritime centre is filled with history, legend and maritime atmosphere. It also has a significant fleet of museum ships moored on the Aurajoki River.
left: the old sailing ship Suomen Joutsen, now retired from active service.
| | |
First time on the ferry - it is taking us from Turku to Stokholm. Our car is on the special car deck. We are exploring some of the ferry - found even signs in Russian.
Looking a bit tired here.
| |
The views from the open deck are amazing! Unfortunately, our camera will never be able to reflect this. Andrey makes several attempts though.
Later in the evening we spent some time in the karaoke bar - we didn't sing - no ;-), but enjoyed a couple of drinks and watched the others. If You watch Finnish and Swedish people sing karaoke - You'll never believe any of the jokes about Scandinavian reserved character ;-)
The morning brings us a substancial breakfast. Andrey even refused to eat more!!! saying that one needs to keep his figure (probably he meant 'her figure').
And here we are - getting ready to a longer drive and if Finnland was close - now we are out in the middle of the unknown - the ferry is ready to release the cars and we are open to new experiences.
Sweden
A Russian Lada in the middle of nowhere - a small parking place, marked on the signs as 'Information point and also food place' - the food is supposed to be brought by the travelers themselves L - the information was no use to us either - not a single word in English (I don't mention Russian ;-) we only understood that a place not far from here - KÃping is quite old and has a lot of history to it - unfortunately what history we could guess only by the pictures. - bad luck.
Such info parkings are very convenient, I wouldn't mind finding them on Russian roads. Here some are very simple and some are located in very picturesque places. There was a man selling cloudberry jelly at one of such parkings.
Norway
You are welcome to share Your travel experience.
Just 
