On the road again

I finally did something that I haven’t yet done since I’ve been in Finland…I stayed in the country for three consecutive weekends! This decision was influenced by a few things, 1) I was exhausted after all my recent (months of) travel, 2) I got staffed on a hectic three-week case, and 3) Finland is actually very nice in the summer! One thing very special to Finland is the Finnish archipelago on the southwestern side of the country which is basically a scattering of thousands of islands from, quite literally, here to Sweden. The Finnish archipelago has more islands than any other archipelago in the world, approximated at around 40,000 if you count every land mass and rock that breaks the surface of the sea. Only 257 of these measure more than one square kilometer and even fewer are inhabited. However, due to the jokamiehenoikeus, literally translated as ”every man’s rights,” in Finland any person may go on any Finnish property to bike, ski, hike, camp, or hunt (providing he or she has the proper permits) as long as the visit does not harm the property or bother the owners. There are some loose guidelines with respect to what is outside of the reasonable limits (i.e. you can’t camp in the immediate vicinity – yards or gardens – of private homes) but you can basically do and go wherever you want in the country as long as you are respectful.

One of the best ways to take advantage of jokamiehenoikeus and the unique Finnish landscape is to island hop by bike in the Finnish archipelago. There is a 240 km route starting from Turku which you can do by alternating short ferry rides with cycling and is usually done over the course of five or so days in the summertime. There are ferries running between the largest of the islands, bridges between others which are very near one another, and personal sailboat or front crawl stroke options for the others. I wanted to explore the archipelago sometime this month and with a trip to Norway scheduled for next weekend, this was my last chance. Word on the street is that Finnish summer is coming to an end post haste!

I have been very busy at work so wasn’t sure I could swing a weekend away but packed my backpack for the weekend anyway and decided I’d make a game time decision at work on Friday. I figured I could take my computer along and decided to go for it. When will I be in Finland in the summer again? I had looked up trains to Turku that morning and the last one leaving Helsinki which would allow me to rent a bike and then take the bus to a village called Kustavi was at 3pm. I finished a meeting at 2:45pm, changed clothes frantically (I only had a small backpack for the weekend so couldn’t bring anything extra), and ran to the train station to catch my 3:03pm train. I arrived panting at 3:01pm only to find out that the train was late. Figures!

We ended up leaving Helsinki at 3:30pm for the two hour ride. As mentioned, I had planned on renting a bike when I got to Turku and then catching the bus to Kustavi but this assumed that my train would get to Turku at 5pm, giving me an hour or so to rent my bike and get to the bus station for the 6:15pm bus to Kustavi. Now that my train was late the whole plan was starting to fall apart. I hadn’t been able to commit to the weekend before that day around noon so hadn’t reserved a bike or any accommodations. I started calling from the train to get things figured out and the train was going so fast that my USB wireless laptop connection kept failing as did my cell phone connection. I was finally able to get access for a few minutes on one of my many devices (cell phone, separate blackberry, and laptop with USB internet connection) which allowed me get the phone number for the bike rental shop in Turku. Annoyingly, their website said nothing about opening hours in either Finnish or Swedish (which I am getting pretty good at deciphering for survival’s sake if not for full understanding) so I wasn’t even sure they would still be around when I got to Turku and would not have any time to waste finding out. I tried calling about 15 times during which I got a busy signal 10 times and hung up on by the Finnish phone system, got no answer and no option to leave a message 3 times, and got a live person twice who didn’t speak English so hung up on me. Ugh.

I gave up on the bike rental for the time being and starting calling to secure accommodations in Kustavi. Thankfully, I had emailed the Kustavi tourist office earlier that week and had asked for a list of places to stay. (Places in rural Finland are almost always and solely advertised in Finnish so it’s impossible to find them with an English Google search.) I started at the top of the list and started making phone calls…out of a grand total of five options in the village (and two of those were actually out of town a ways) I got one “sorry – no room available,” one “I have room but it is impossible,” ummmm…ok…took that as another no room available, one no answer, and two non-English speaking patrons who just started yelling whatever they were trying to tell me, making the common cross-cultural mistake that louder words somehow convey their meaning better. If I don’t know the word to begin with I don’t know it any better when it’s yelled at me! (I will never, ever make the “talk louder so they will understand you” mistake again after this year!) One of the associates on my case graciously offered to help me and called the Turku bike and tourist office to help me get some details as I tried to figure out a back-up plan. He found out that the bike rental shop was out of bikes (very good to know before making a frantic run over there!) but that the tourist office had some and would be open until 6pm. Thank you, Jonni!

My initial plan had been to bus the 60 km to Kustavi that night and then split the remaining 180 km (this includes ferry rides) of the trail back to Turku over the next couple days. Kustavi was sounding booked and I wasn’t willing to take the chance that one of the non-English speaking places had a room because, if not, I’d be up a creek in the middle of Finnish nowhere. I had planned on starting in Kustavi and then cycling to Nauvo to stay for the second night so knew of some possible accommodations in that area. I started calling and emailing for rooms in Nauvo, hoping I’d get some sort of confirmation before I had to commit myself to a bus ride into the island wilderness.

I finally got in touch with a recommended bed and breakfast about 5 km outside of Nauvo which had one room still available. I told the owner that I’d take it and I’d be there as soon as possible – hold that room! My train arrived in Turku at 5:35pm and I jumped out quickly to find a taxi to the tourist office. I got to the tourist office a few minutes later and told the woman at the desk my plans to rent a bike and get to Nauvo. She suddenly looked a little panicked and ran off to the find the bus schedule. She rushed back and put it in front of me circling the last departure of the day to Nauvo at 6:20pm. It was now 5:50pm and I wasn’t worried – this lady clearly didn’t know what kind of traveler I am! Thirty minutes is plenty of time. She said, “I don’t know if bike is allowed on bus.” Oh. Now that is a bummer. I had assumed that would be a given and if I wasn’t able to take a Turku bike on the bus, I wouldn’t be able to do the loop (because I wouldn’t be able to return a bike rented elsewhere to the original rental location). “Bus station is 20 minute walk so….” she was struggling with the words and couldn’t quite finish her thought so I did it for her, “…so I better hurry!” She smiled and nodded a big nod. “YES!” I thanked her, grabbed a map, and headed out the door. I didn’t want to risk getting turned away by the last bus of the day because I had a bike with me so decided to just go and rent one when I got to Nauvo. No option to do the loop now but what can you do?

I headed off toward the bus station and usually when someone says it takes 20 minutes it takes me less than 10 minutes. I was paying attention to where I was on the map and this time the 20 minute approximation was actually wishful thinking. I would probably have made it but it would have been cutting it close so I when I saw a taxi driver standing next to his car, I waved him down. The map turned out not to be very representative of the actual distance so this ended up being a good call. I made it to the station, boarded the bus, and was finally on my way to Nauvo.

Nauvo is the Finnish name for the island and Nagu is the Swedish name. Almost every city and island name in western Finland has interchangeably used Finnish and Swedish names (the Swedish name for Turku which is also posted on all road signs and train timetables is Åbo, for example). If Sweden and Finland are the two extremes on a continuum, the islands between the countries form the tangible transition section from one country and culture to the other. I don’t speak Finnish or Swedish and trying to get around and make myself understandable in one language of place names is hard enough let alone having two options and no idea which one to use in a given situation! The dual-culture piece of this part of Finland is also pretty special to the place so while it actually made it a bit harder for me to navigate (anything that would have been translated to English was now in Swedish instead) it was also a really interesting cultural blend to see in action.

I got off my bus in Nauvo / Nagu which was more a bus stop than a village and then had to figure out how to get to my accommodations for the night 5 km away. I called to ask how they would recommend getting from “town” to the bed and breakfast and the owner’s wife told me that since my bus was already gone (I apparently could have gotten off a couple stops down the road), that she’d be happy to drive in and pick me up. Ten minutes later a very cute woman pulled up in the family station wagon to pick me up. Gotta love small (tiny) town travel!

I was staying at a bed and breakfast on an old homestead which was founded in 1760, 250 years ago this year. Wow! The woman who picked me up was the wife of the owner who was the 8th generation owner of the establishment. Some of the old barn buildings had been converted into a bed and breakfast and hotel while he and his family live in the old, very beautiful main house. The bed and breakfast was truly Finnish cottage style and was more like staying in someone’s home than at a hotel. I had a very simple bedroom and then shared a bathroom, kitchen, and sitting area with the other guests. I usually don’t like this kind of setup (who wants to run into strangers in your jammies in the middle of the night on your way to the bathroom?) but it was so relaxed and low key that it was actually really pleasant. Finns are so quiet and respectful in general anyway that when you put them in a shared house you really hardly notice they are there. If I was looking for some solitude and a break from the city I definitely got it! The summer tourist season ended a week ago (not that I expect it was very crazy even in “tourist season”) and I was on a homestead 5 km outside a village on an island requiring a ferry ride to get there. I like peace and quiet and this may have been even too much for me! Absolutely no, and I really mean no, possible distractions means that you will deal with any demons you may have brought with you before you’re gone – there’s no escaping or ignoring them in the archipelago! The only bad thing about being in the middle of the archipelagan nowhere is there is also no access to food…I grabbed an on-the-run sandwich in the train station in Turku at 5:30pm on Friday and breakfast didn’t start until 8am the next morning. I was starving! (I also realized how much I snack in the evening!)

I rented a bike the next morning and took off for a day of exploration in the archipelago. The day was absolutely and stunningly perfect – bright blue skies and sunshine all around. Another reason I had delayed this trip was because the rain had started to come intermittently to Helsinki and to Turku in the last few weeks (supposedly the beginning of the “horrible autumn” as I’ve been told – yikes!) and I was really trying to avoid biking in the rain. This weekend was also questionable but it was do or die so I just went with it and was handsomely rewarded on the weather front. It was pretty windy but otherwise gorgeous and a perfect temperature at around 75°F. After the crazy cold winter and the last several weeks of uncharacteristically hot and humid summer in Helsinki, I had absolutely no complaints! (Incidentally, this is the hottest summer in Finland since they have been able to measure temperature. My apartment was so hot one day that I found a melting chocolate bar in my kitchen cabinet. Oy.)

I had a great day riding from Nauvo / Nagu to Korpoo / Korpo to Houtskär and back again, stopping at a few beaches, taking four ferries, and checking out some really beautiful farms along the way. It was really fun and relaxing to be biking on the islands with only a few cars passing by every once in a while (car ferries turn out to be excellent traffic control!). The ferry rides themselves were fun too and it really was a great way to see the archipelago. I only wish I could have had another couple days to do the whole loop! (Although after all my solo travel it would have been nice to have someone along to talk to on this trip…Finland is just so QUIET. The silence is really almost deafening!) I took a slightly different route back and did some extra exploration of Nauvo before heading to the village grocery store (wasn’t going to play the starving-all-night game again!) and then to my little cottage. All in all, I estimate that I biked around 70-80 km so it was quite a full day! And shockingly, I didn’t even get a little bit lost. Not even for a kilometer! (I was on the brink of disappointed...the trip was almost too uneventful without my typical figure-out-how-not-to-sleep-outside-tonight trouble-shooting exercise!)

As I was relaxing that evening, I got a call and then a text from an unknown number… “Andrea, would it be alright with you if we served breakfast starting at 9am tomorrow?” I laughed thinking about my new buddies at the homestead who really treated their guests as friends and were hoping to sleep in on Sunday – so cute! Gave the stay a very different, truly homey feel.

I got up for breakfast that morning (delayed till 9am) and although I had been planning on spending another day biking, the bus connections back to Helsinki out of the summer holiday season weren’t great and I only had a morning 10:45am option or a 6pm option which would get me into Helsinki at almost 11pm. I had errands to run and decided that once you’ve seen 50 islands you’ve basically seen them all so opted for the 10:45am bus. The owner of the property personally drove me to the bus stop after checking the schedule (a confusing array of Finnish and Swedish abbreviations, times, routes, exclusions, inclusions, valid throughs, etc.) himself and then, when we arrived at the bus stop a few minutes early to find no bus, also checked with a woman at the bus stop convenience store. They both looked at the schedule and confirmed, “Yes. The bus should come at 10:45am. It must have missed a ferry from Korpoo so is a bit late.” No problem. I was happy to sit outside in the sun.

So I sat outside in the sun…the bus was only 5 minutes late after all…then 15 minutes late, then 20, then 30…at this point I would miss my connection to Helsinki anyway and the ferry from Korpoo to Nauvo was only 10 minutes long so couldn’t have delayed the bus this long (unless it sank with the bus on it!). I tried to decipher the schedule again myself and was worried about the “++” next to the bus departure for Sundays. I translated the Swedish words next to it which read “only during school summer holiday” and gulped. I was pretty sure the Finnish schools had started up again last Tuesday. I went back in and asked the same woman at the café counter to look at the schedule again, just to make sure I hadn’t misread something or she knew of a schedule change (you really never know!). She read it and said, “Yes, yes. It should be coming….maybe it missed a ferry?....Oh! Wait! That one is only Monday through Saturday! Next bus comes at 1:45pm.” It was currently 11:15am. Ugh. A year ago I would have been going crazy at the inefficient use of time and inability to perfectly maximize every minute of my day but I have learned to go with the flow since coming here. (I had to adjust or I would have driven myself crazy!) So, I spent the next few hours hanging out at the bus stop café in Nauvo, getting some work done and making some cultural Finnish archipelago observations! Nothing lost!

The 1:45pm bus finally came and I was back on my way to Helsinki. I realized when I arrived back in the city that it has taken eight months but I finally feel at home here. I got off the bus, knew where I was, went to the grocery store, knew where the food I wanted was, and walked home in perfect 70°F weather. (Maybe I only feel at home now because it is San Francisco weather sans the fog!) I have been warned that this weather will be short-lived but so is the rest of my time here which is crazy, sad, and exciting all at the same time…there are still so many things to do and places in which to get lost!