Tampere

Finland is a land of lakes and I wanted to see some of them so I travelled northwards to Tampere, Finland's second largest urban area. Alas, its latitude is only 61N so I was nowhere near the Arctic circle. It's the furthest north I have been on the planet so far.

When I got there I rang up Arto, a Finnish hosteller I had met on my travels before Finland, I seem to recall in Switzerland. Unfortunately he had just come back from a long trip elsewhere in Europe and was simply too exhausted to meet up. We sent each other postcards occasionally over the following years until we lost touch.

I don't remember where these photos were taken from. Obviously some high vantage point overlooking the city.

Strangely one thing I remember of the hostel was that the best option for dinner was a pizza from the restaurant downstairs. It wasn't too bad either. It may even have been run by real Italians.

As you would expect, products like paper pulp from coniferous wood are an important mainstay of the economy.

I watched the operation of this canal lock for a while. At that time in my life I hadn't seen many canal locks yet.

The low angle of this shot suggests that I was actually on the boat going through the lock so perhaps I took some kind of tour.

I have no pictures of the return trip to Helsinki, and thence Stockholm. I've already posted the pictures of Stockholm in a previous entry so the story will continue in Malmö.