the last days, i’ve been travelling back south, arriving at helsinki airport tomorrow to fly back to zürich. when i started driving south in lapland, it was still ruska time:

(these shots are from the first time i the clouds broke open and let sunlight through on my way south, after having seen a dense cloud cover for the last whatever many days.) the farther south i got, the less colorful the landscape got. but then, there were other interesting things to see.

vikajärvi.

on my way north, i drove directly from kemijärvi to sodankylä, hence missing vikajärvi, the town i stayed in for 10 days last year in march. but on my way back south, with my first stop-over being kemi, the best way was going straight through vikajärvi. i couldn’t resist to get a better view of some places during fall:

compare the first photo to this one, and the place where i shot the last two photos is depicted here. everything looks quite different, eh?

kemi.

my first stop-over was kemi, finland’s northernmost city at a coast to an ocean. (it is located at the bothnian bay.) here are a few impressions from a stroll to the old harbor:

lumijoki: bay of bothnia.

continuing the next day to vaasa, i did a stop in varjakka near lumijoki to get another, more beachy view on the bothnian bay:

unfortunately, the weather got bad around that point, as on the way to varjakka and back there were a lot of nice views…

(lumijoki lies in pohjois-pohjanmaa, which roughly translates to northern northland. considering that there is a lot more north of it, the name is quite a fail :) )

öja.

somewhere before vaasa, i took a small detour and visited the island öja. unfortunatley, the weather was still not very exciting…

from vaasa i continued further south to turku.

turun linna.

when arriving in turku, i was too early to check in into my hotel, so i drove in the direction of the harbor to see some sea. but then i saw turku’s castle and decided to take a closer look at it. the castle was built over 700 years ago and is still mostly intact. one can nowadays walk through a maze of rooms and enjoy many great views, on both medieval and renaissance parts, and there is also a prehistoric exhibition running. it’s definitely a great place to visit! here are some impressions:

turun tuomiokirkko and surroundings.

after dropping my stuff off at the hotel and refreshing myself, i went to see the tuomiokirkko and its surroundings. here are some impressions:

while staying in ivalo, i did a daytrip to kirkenes in norway, and dipped my feet into the barents sea. it was pretty cold, and didn’t got any warmer while staying in it a bit longer. i’d still jump in if i would have taken my swimming gear with me… this is a thing you don’t do that often. as before in ivalo, it was cloudy. and rained a bit. but nonetheless, it was beautiful. lappland is just beautiful. the barents sea reminds me a lot of the north sea. which reminds me that i haven’t been there for quite some time.

the last five days i’ve been spending at lake inari, near to ivalo, as you might have already seen. unfortunately, it was cloudy most of the time. but most of the time it was dry, and never too cold. (i never wore a jacket.) the area is just beautiful, especially if it is so colorful during ruska.

if you’re interested in staying there, here is the mökki’s booking page. this one has tap water, though it contains a lot of iron and many people do not like the taste. (i didn’t mind it too much, though.) the sauna is wood-driven, as in the first mökki.

while staying near to ivalo, the first night was really, really beautiful. some kind of fog, illuminated by the full moon, and aurorae dancing on the sky. just incredible.

more (daylight) photos will follow later. and in case you didn’t notice, i updated part two and added a few more photos from the trip from kuusamo to ivalo.

today, i drove from anttola/mikkeli up to kuusamo. the views i got reminded me a lot of the yukon. this time of autumn where everything is so colorful is called ruska; i hope i’ll also experience that while staying near to ivalo.

this night there is a solar storm going on (as one can watch right now here), resulting in probable aurora sightenings. unfortunatley, there are clouds on the sky… but maybe i’m more lucky during the next days?

here are a few more impressions from the next day, when i continued to ivalo:

i spent the last days in the finnish lakeland, near mikkeli. far away from the rest of the world (more precisely: 9 km to the next village), at a lake. with electricity, though, but without running water. but who needs a shower if you have a whole lake! the water wasn’t exactly warm anymore, but it was warm enough to spend a lot of time inside. if it is too cold, there’s a sauna next to the cottage, wood-operated of course. there’s also a rowing boat, to explore the tiny part of the huge lake (or shall i say, system of lakes?) near enough. also, during this time of the year, the place was essentially bug free. i maybe got one or two bites during one week, without using any repellant. here are a few impressions.

in case you’re interested, the website of the cottage owner can be found here. i had one of the punainen mökit (“red cottages”).

(the birds on the water are probably whooper swans.)

today, i did an excursion to the furka pass and the rhône glacier. i started at 05:45 in zürich, took the train to göschenen, and continued by postauto to the hotel belvédère.

from there, one can visit the ice grotto, a grotto hewn into the glacier. this was the first time i was inside a glacier, though not the first time being inside a artifical ice cave. there is a long twisted corridor, ending in a grotto. the walls often have lights inside, yielding spectacular effects. check out some impressions:

after that, i did a hike to the furka passhöhe. supposed to be a nice, easy hike, at least when you start at at the passhöhe. starting from hotel belvédère, the way is very steep in the beginning (instead of going steeply down at the end). here’s what my gps recorded for me.

the hike started at 2291 meters above sea level, climbed up to 2450 meters above sea level in around 700 meters, and peaked at 2486 meters above sea level near the end, and ended at 2427 meters above sea level after 2.97 kilometers. according to qlandkartegt, i climbed up 358 meters and walked down 222 meters during the whole trip. not bad for my training level… almost took me 2 1/2 hours. but it was really beautiful up there!

in case you want to do the trip in the same direction: the trail starts, seen from the glacier, behind the hotel. the sign is pretty easy to miss, and the trailhead is also easy to miss…

yesterday, i paid konstanz a short visit. here are some impressions:

today i did a short excursion to the botanical garden in zürich. the sun was shining and i got some nice pictures. there also was a cat to pet, though after some time it walked away… anyway, it was a nice trip, and here are some of the results. the cat never was in the right position to take a nice photo, so unfortunately there is no photo of the cat…

the trip to the morteratsch glacier was my first hike where i took all my lenses. i also played around with the macro lens, though it is not that easy if there is a bit of wind which makes the plants you want to photograph move slightly (wrecking focus), and if you don’t have a tripod and have to hold the camera yourself, and of course your body is always moving very slightly. since for macro photography every millimeter counts (especially without high f-stops, which increase the focus area, but which really require a tripod and a calm subject), this is not a good combination. i still think i got some nice shots. here are a few impressions: