To Helsinki

Not nearly enough sleep overnight, especially when the alarm woke us at 4.30 to be ready and checked out of the hotel by 5.30. It is about minus 13 but clear skies. On the coach we all bundle for our short ride to the train station. It is quite chaotic for our group as there is hardly anyone else in sight and we have all been given a ticket with an allocated seat number, but there is no luggage compartment as such so we trudge our cases onto the train and attempt to fit 23 people’s cases into the 4 extra seats that have Ben booked for this purpose. 23 into 4 doesn’t work well, so I left them to it, as I go in search of our seats.
We are all meant to be in carriage 5 with some downstairs and most upstairs. Our tickets say Coach 5, Upper deck, Place 65 and 66 respectively. So I head upstairs of coach 5 only to find that the numbers stop at 64! I then go down stairs and through 5 automated doors that have clearly taken me to the next carriage, number 4, Upstairs I go, only to be face with a small swinging half door with a painted duck on it, welcoming me to the children’s play area. Give me strength. Don’t tell me we are to be stuck in the passengers with small children specific carriage for the next 8 1/2 hours... Oh dear.
SB and I are allocated the end seats next to each other at the back of the carriage, next to the toilet. We are the only ones from our group in a different carriage, but as luck really turned out to be on our side, there were on,y 3 other adults in the entire carriage! So SB moved across into the seat opposite me and we felt pretty confident that no one else was likely to get on and fill up our carriage! Some lovely scenery along the way and old fashioned railway stations.

So we settled in, spread our stuff about and enjoyed the box breakfast the the hotel provided for us. There is excellent wifi on the train, so I have been able to add photos of the Reindeer farm visit to yesterday’s blog, plus get a head start on today’s.

All was going well until about 12.30 when although more people had been getting on at the different stops, we still had our seats to ourselves. Then a young lass told us that one of us was in her seat as apparently we should have been in carriage 5 where we were now assured there were seats for us. However she kindly went to carriage 5 and we stayed put. Unfortunately a short time later another lady got on and said we were in her seat so we bundled up all our gear and headed back to carriage 5 where we both found seats and that’s where we stayed until we reached Helsinki. We were a few minute late getting underway but ended up arriving an hour late so that our 8 1/2 hour trip became 9 1/2 hours. Having had so little sleep overnight I was ready to collapse in a heap. A sore throat, blocked nose and dry cough wasn’t helping. I reckon all the rest of our group were more than ready to head to our hotel and call it a day, but instead we were me5 at the station by Richard who was there to take us on a 2 1/2 hour orientation coach tour of the city. Ugh! He was very knowledgeable but I barely took in more than a few things he told us. Felt sorry for the guy as he was clearly passionate about the place but we were weary travellers who had had enough sight seeing for the day. I’m looking forward to seeing more of Helsinki in a couple of days when we have free time.
Here’s a few very average quality snaps taken from the coach.

The second to last one is of the marina, but as it freezes over, all the boats have to be moved to dry dock! Anyway we finally get to our hotel which is the Holiday Inn. We have had 4 star plus hotels to date, so it is very disappointing to end up in a budget hotel that didn’t even have any tissues in the bathroom, just an empty box. When SB asked for more tissues she was told that they were having a problem with the supplier and so none of the rooms had tissues. I wasn’t in the best frame of mind, so thankfully had the good grace not to shout at the woman in reception because my first thought was then why the heck didn’t someone go to the supermarket 50 metres down the road and buy a couple of hundred boxes of bloody tissues? Anyway, SB and I went to the supermarket ourselves and bought our own!
Didn’t want to do much for dinner so the four musketeers agreed to have dinner in the hotel lobby bar. They were big meals and we were all full half way through. As we have another early start in the morning we all agreed that a very early night was needed so justtime yo finish the blog and then I hope to be soundly asleep within minutes of lights out. It hadn’t been much of an 8ntersting day, but a necessary travel day to get us to Helsinki. I’m sure there will be lots more adventures to report tomorrow.