Rovaniemi

Rovaniemi is a city in northern Finland, the capital of Finnish Lapland. Located some 10 kms south from the arctic circle, it has about 59 000 inhabitants and is the widest city in Europe: meaning the area of 8016 km2. It's the 12th biggest city of Finland and an important educational city: 5000 students from other parts of Finland and other countries study and stay there temporarily. In University of Lapland there are 4600 students and five faculties: education, business&tourism, law, social sciences and art&design.

Rovaniemi lays in a place where two big rivers meet: Ounasjoki coming from north and Kemijoki going to south. It has traditionally been the gate to Lapland and it become a city in the year 1960.

What to do there

Santa Claus village http://www.santaclausvillage.info/ is located on arctic circle some 8 kms north form Rovaniemi, so you can visit both at the same time. To get there take local bus number 8 from the railway station. Tell the driver you want to see Santa and they'll tell you where to get off. It'll take around 20 minutes to get there and costs 6-7 euros return. You can see Santa and talk with him for free but they'll try to make you buy a photo of you with him and that'll cost 25 euros so be aware! No own cameras allowed. You might have to wait, especially in december-january the cues are quite long. Santa's post office is worth visiting, it's free to visit and you'll see letters from all over the world coming to Santa.

Arctic circle is the line (66° 33′ 39″ north) where there's one polar day (24 hours sun) and one polar night (24 hours without sun) during the year, midsummer in June and midwinter in December. Moving north from the arctic circle there'll be more polar days and nights.

Where shall we have dinner?

There are several reastaurants where to eat, the prices, quality, stule etc naturally varying!

A good place to have lunch is cafe Kauppayhtiö http://kauppayhtio.com/ http://www.myspace.com/kauppayhtio address Valtakatu 24, you'll find fresh salads and sandwitches and the best coffee in town. Don't be misslead for the fact that they can't spell the names of the Italian coffees correctly, the coffee's quite all right! All the furniture there is second hand and the impression is very cosy and homely and quite unique. Definitely a living-room kind of place. The prices are ok, 5-10 euros for a lunch is normally enough! The opening hours are Mon-Thu 10.30-20 Fri-Sat 10.30-02, after 20.00 there's age limit of 18.

Getting to and from Rovaniemi

You can fly from Helsinki or take train from several cities in Finland.

Flight prices start from 60 euros http://www.blue1.fi/en/ http://www.finnair.fi/finnaircom/wps/portal/finnair/kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Y_QjzKLD4138QXJgFk--pGoIs6eqCKu8W4hcBFfj_zcVP0gfW_9AP2C3NDQiHJHRQAs5K3n/delta/base64xml/L0lKWWttUSEhL3dITUFDc0FFVUFOby80SUVhREFBIS9lbl9GSQ!!?setlocale=en_FI and will take bit over an hour. From the airport the cheapest way to get to Rovaniemi is airport express starting from 5 euros per person. It'll take you to the address you want so ask your host for the address and you'll get straight to their fron door!

Train http://www.vr.fi/heo/eng/index.html from Helsinki costs 70-80 euros, from other cities less. If you're taking return trip the cheapest option is finnrail pass (only for people who are not permanently living in Finland!) for 3 days within one month, 129 euros http://www.vr.fi/heo/eng/sesonki/fsesonki.htm . Then you can for example make a day trip to Oulu or stop at some other city on your way. For Pendolinos you'll have to make a recervation and pay some euros extra but most of the trains to Rovaniemi are not pendolinos. The trip Helsinki-Rovaniemi will take around 9 hours by daytrain, 12-13 hours by night train. The beds in cabins in night trains cost 11 - 26 - 36 euros depending on what kind of cabin and which train. There'll also be cars with seats with no extra fare but remember that the lights will not be switched off and they might be bit restless. You'll always find a restaurant car in a train and sometimes (especially fridays and saturdays) the parties there are quite wild. If you want to get a look on finnish drinking habits, that's the place. But be warned: you might really get shocked!!