Finnish Lapland, Returning from North Cape

A trip devoted to light, water and.... salmon! A trip in Norway, Finland and Sweden in summer means never sleeping, or almost. In fact it's hard to go to bed at midnight when the sun has just set and it's still as bright as day. We can define this trip as a scenic dash along the spectacular Norwegian coasts, which would certainly deserve a more detailed visit. The limited time in fact forced us into a long dash from Oslo to North Cape along the Norwegian fjords and the Lofoten islands, touching the main Norwegian cities, then returning through Finnish Lapland and Sweden with a quick visit to Stockholm and back to Oslo for the return to Italy. In 12 days we covered 6463 km, used 391 litres of petrol and took 12 ferries. A temperature range of about 22º (28º in Stockholm and 6º at North Cape) and practically 288 hours of daylight, a few thousand little lakes and a few kilos of salmon.

For the description of the part in Norway see Norway 'From Oslo to North Cape'. 28 July 2008; Monday Skarvag (North Cape) - Rovaniemi (Finland) 735 km; Temperature 8º, cloudy, sun. Waking up always wrapped in the blanket of clouds; the view of the cliff from North Cape will be for next time. We therefore decide to set off southwards, since further north you can't go, or rather you can reach the true northernmost point of Europe, which strangely isn't North Cape, but another cape reachable on foot with a 9 km trek. We leave the island of Magerøya, again the toll for the tunnel and lots of groups of reindeer on the road. The sun starts to appear near Lakselv at the southern end of the Porsanger fjord. We wonder whether at North Cape it will have cleared too, but turning towards the North, the big clouds on the horizon seem to give us the answer.

We continue on the E6 to Karasjok, where we'll leave it to head for the Finnish border. In the town of Karasjok we visit the Lapp museum, although the visit to the Lapp museum of Inari in Finland will be much more interesting. We're now in Finnish Lapland; the clouds have completely disappeared, the speed limit has gone up to 100 km/h, the long undulating straights lined with little lakes and the ever-present reindeer let us quickly reach Inari, on Lake Anar, where we visit the interesting Sami museum. We then continue towards Rovaniemi, our destination today. A few km before entering Rovaniemi you cross the Arctic Circle or 'napapiiri' in Finnish, and right here is Santa Claus Village, the famous Father Christmas village. It's now 23:00 and we wander around the square in front of Santa's office, from which Christmas melodies drift out.

We reach Rovaniemi and find a room at the City Hotel (70 euros) right in the centre of Rovaniemi. After the prohibitive prices of Norway, Finland seems to us a very cheap country. 29 July 2008; Tuesday Rovaniemi (Finland) - Stockholm 1200 km; Temperature 19º, clear. We should set off for Stockholm straight away, considering the 1200 km between us, but the curiosity of a visit to Santa Claus Village is stronger than us, so we head north and here we are back at the village. Now all the facilities are open: the post office with plenty of letters from children all over the world, Santa's office, the rather gloomy path in the polar night and, dulcis in fundo, in the main office we find ourselves face to face with Santa Claus, which we really weren't expecting. We leave behind the childhood reminiscences and head for Stockholm. A long route between little lakes and pine woods.

We're skirting the Baltic Sea, the temperature has risen considerably, we're now around 20 degrees, Swedish kids are splashing in the sea. The most interesting stretch of the E4 is certainly the one between Örnsköldsvik and Sundsvall. Around 22:00 a fiery red sunset. We reach Stockholm around 23:00 and in the blink of an eye we find the Haga Kristineberg Hotel (850 SEK) that we'd booked via the Internet.