To Lapland we ride!
But first, we stop by in Kemi
and in Tornio 
(man, it was so drafty there that day. I compared it to the isle of the wind in Zelda's Phantom Hourglass ;) ) and then arrived in Rovaniemi.Our wonderful, wonderful hotel for tonight is located on Ounasvaara, located opposite to the city centre. We've read before it might have one of Finland's best restaurants, and - yes! To me, it was!
View from our hotel-rooftop:
We spend our time outside and time flies by.
This near to the polar circle, the sun seems to stay with us all night, though midsummer still is a few days ahead. Already quite a magical night!
And well deserved:
distance Oulu - Rovaniemi: ~230km
day 7: (tue)
somehow I wish, we could have stayed longer in Rovaniemi, but on the other hand, we're also looking forward to Kuusamo. Maybe we would finally have the chance to see a bear?
But first, we visit the city centre of Rovaniemi and the Arcticum. This is a great muesum!
Different exhibitions on Sami people, the polar-circle and so much more! Unfortunately, we're a bit in a hurry, because we also have another place on our list to stop by: Santa Claus!
Well, people who know me also know I'm some kind of a christmas-grinch, so I am more interested in reaching the polar-circle than meeting Santa ;)
Quite surreal feeling, standing in a cool breeze in the sun in june, watching reindeer and listening to x-mas-songs. Back into the car!
Before reaching our destination, we stop by at a gas station. Lucky us: there we're told about a beautiful place nearby on our route which we might want to check out. And we did, otherwise we had missed this wonderful Finland-highlight: Auttiköngäs (köngäs = waterfall). Thereby is a wonderful hiking trail, providing you with information about the area (and yes, Mr. Brown Bear lives here! We're on his track!). Beautiful experience, thanks a lot, gas-station-man! :D
Still not enough beautiful nature, we go for a midnight walk in Kuusamo.
distance Rovaniemi - Kuusamo: ~190km
day 8: (wed)
Oulanka National Park is calling us! We look out for an interesting, not too demanding (hey, we're here to enjoy the landscape, not for doing sports ;) ) hiking route and find the Hiiden hurmos trail to be the right one for us. Perfect!
From time to time the idea strikes me, this might be one of the best places in the world. A part of me wants to stay here forever (or at least a few more hours, please). But we have to break away from this little paradise, because we also want to check out Ruka, located south of the national park.
Ruka seems to be a place-to-be for winter sports, but also in summer it's a nice place for hiking. Here, we choose the more demanding route around Ruka to get a glimpse of the ski-jump there.
And yes, it is really quite demanding, but you can go downhill at the end of the track by summer sled track, it's the longest in Finland!
day 9: (thu)
Finally, the honeypaw awaits! South of Kuusamo, the predator-rescue-centre (suurpetokeskus) enables us to see wolves, bears, fox, lynx and - most dangerous - reindeer! Impressive!
When you're there, stop by and support the centre!
No other halts on our trip this day, we arrive at Kajaani quite early. We're a bit exhausted from our hiking-days before, so we only take a short walk through the city.
no pictures today, boooooooring! ;)
distance Kuusamo - Kajaani: ~250km
day 10: (fri)
Already leaving Kajaani in the direction of Joensuu.
And we have another national park in sight: Koli. Of course, there's a lot to say about this place, but I'll let the images speak for themselves:
we spend most of the day here, in the evening we reach Joensuu.
distance Kajaani - Joensuu: ~230km
