After Stockholm, Sweden last September and Tromso, Norway in February, we lapped up the remaining Nordic countries with Helsinki and Lapland in Finland, and Copenhagen in Denmark.
Helsinki
Resembled Tallin and St Petersburg a lot more than Stockholm, which I sort of expected in my head since Helsinki and Stockholm are part of Nordics.
But then again, makes complete sense given the geographical proximity of the Baltic City and Russia to Helsinki.
The trams of Helsinki even give you a communist feeling with the no nonsense structure that seemed unchanged for decades.
There's the usual City square and cathedrals and waterfronts in Helsinki like any other part of Europe that could easily be covered in an evenings walk, which is exactly what we did on the one evening of April 17 we spent here.
Restaurant:
Rovianemi
This is now Lapland, quite different from Helsinki given its rural-rustic surroundings.
April however, is peak off-season given the following:
1. Nightfall is not more than 2 hours, leaving very little pitch black for the Aurora viewing. There was just one agency still operating this tour and we made it just 2 days before they closed down as well. Not like it made any difference, as there was simply no activity on the day, irrespective of how much Anthony from 'Lapland Welcome' tried to keep us engaged for the night.
2. The day time activities of Lapland haven't begun in April yet. More importantly, these are activities like Moose Safari that aren't all that fun.
3. The best activities to do here are snowmobile rides, Arctic ice breaker, or the husky and reindeer safari, and all of them happen in the winter season only
4. The only single benefit I could find in visiting Lapland in April was catching Santa at Santa Village so 'vela' that he even recorded a message for Soha!
It's the best therefore, to visit Lapland in Winters, better still around Christmas itself to soak in the best of Santa, the Reindeer's, the Elves, all the snow and ice, and maybe even a glimpse of the Aurora.
The best activity we managed to do here though was ice fishing, and this turned out third time unlucky since we managed to catch the Piranhas in Amazon and Trouts in New Zealand. The pikes and perches of Rovianemi gave us a miss though.
We were definitely doing something wrong, since the locals besides us were catching really big fish by the dozen. Matt from 'Lapland Welcome' was as new as us to ice fishing, and therefore his company, some hot chocolate, and loads of photos and videos were all we managed on those 3 hours on ice.
Restaurants:
Copenhagen
Little did I expect Copenhagen to be a twin city to Amsterdam, but it was exactly that.
It’s filled with strip clubs, cyclists, boat canal tours, beer tours (just that Carlsberg replaces Heineken), raw herring, bright coloured buildings, and icy wind for eternal company.
There are some subtle differences though:
1. The cyclists are polite. They aren't honking, cussing or even running over you like in Amsterdam
2. The strip clubs are not laced with windows (that remains unique to the red light district of Amsterdam), but what you find here are loads of nefarious activity in suspicious streets
3. There's Tivoli, the second-oldest operating amusement park in the world, after Dyrehavsbakken (also in Denmark), bang in the centre of the city making it a very easy activity to cover during your time here
4. Although the herring is common to both, the food, with the open sandwiches of Copenhagen, is at least healthier than the fried bitterballens of Amsterdam
Copenhagen is therefore a great place for stag-dos, very much like Amsterdam, and apart from the scenic Nyhavn, there was little else Geet enjoyed here.
What we took away from it was primarily catching up with Naan and A, and watching the first 2 episodes of GOTs season finale.
Restaurants:
