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Turku - Lappeenranta Day 16 - 27-June

Going East
Time to leave Turku, 2 days is a bit much for Turku, even with a day trip included. Today a big journey is scheduled, Turku to Lappeenranta.

Travel details: Turku-Lappeenranta Trainride: Express train / Intercity Departure:11:00 - Arrival:16:57 Distance: 466 km

Express trains are quite old and crappy. But the Intercities look nice. They have double decker carriages though I don't know why because they only have 4 wagons. The journey for today is quite long and I need to switch stations twice, at Pasila and at Kouvola. Pasila appears to be the last station before Helsinki and is a very modern place with a lot of modern office buildings. If you walk out of the station building you can actually see Helsinki (though I didn't know where to look precisely). Kouvola is very gray and not worthwhile leaving the train station (though Pasila is not more interesting). The last part of the ride is quite interesting. The landscape has changed and the weather as well. It gets quite warm (23 degrees) and the only things you see is forest, forest and forest. Until we suddenly stop at Lappeenranta, a small station not far away from the russian border.


The church tower of Lappeenranta, though you could call it a tower as well, because there is no church building.

Busy town, empty hostel
Lappeenranta is quite small and I have to walk quite some kilometers to the hostel which is located 2km out of the city centre (the train station is outside the centre as well, but on the other side of the city). But I got used to the distances and even with a heavy backpack on my bag the walk goes quite fast. As I expected I was the only person in the room. In fact, I was the only person in the hostel. The Lonely Planet travel guide says this hostel books-up fast, well that's not true apparently. But as I walk through the city it appears that more things are wrong. The internet cafe doesn't exist.

On the square nearby the big lake Saimaa (Finlands biggest lake, and the first one I see) there are quite some people. I eat a traditional meat sandwich called Kevy (I pronounced it completely wrong while ordering). Quite nice and it fills really well also. Other traditional food in Finland seems to be fast food, Mc Donalds is doing good business and in Finland they also have the Hesburger. You can clearly see that people like to eat at these places because people are quite fat here. In Sweden there were also a lot of Mc Donalds restaurants and hotdog stands, but people were in much better shape over there.

After a closer look i find out that Lappeenranta is quite busy actually. People are walking around everywhere and cars are driving around. It's sunday evening so the midsummernight weekend is almost over, tomorrow I will make the journey to Helsinki, the last stop of this journey.

In Lappeenranta there is also a fortress, but like every fort here. it doesn't look like one. It's a big grassy hill, fortified with some stones and on top of it there are some old cannons and houses. It looks nice nonetheless and you have a view far over the lake. And coming closer to the lake you also see how clean it is, walking on a pier you never lose sight of the bottom of the lake and you can see the fish swimming in the water.

The fortress of Lappeenranta, with view over the square at the harbor


Lake Saimaa, Finlands largest lake, and quite clean as well.

In a bar which according to the Lonely Planet lacks atmosphere and is quite cheap I have a drink, I ask the waitress for an internet cafe and she tells me that there is an Internet PC in the cafe. She cannot remember that there would be anything else in town and starts laughing when she sees the comments about the bar in my travel guide. Drinks are very expensive she explains, and she's disappointed that the place lacks atmosphere. Well the decoration is nice, but Finnish people don't say a word. They just drink something, and sit quietly looking at football on a big-screen.

I walk back to the hostel, fall asleep under a thin blanket which causes me to have a cold night. The hostel is on a camping site, there are some campers but the hostel building is empty. Though for €7,50 a night you can't really complain. This is the cheapest hostel of the whole journey. In Helsinki I will be sleeping for 25 Euro a night.