TacoCat’s Travels (Finland) #24: Savouring Savonlinna!

Hey Steemit!

I was so surprised when I found out my last post on Linnanmäki blew up even bigger than the previous one! Thank you so much to everyone who read, curated, upvoted and resteemed it! I really appreciate it and I'm so glad people are enjoying these posts! 😄

24 May 2018. Thursday.

Anyway, after that short weekend trip where we took part in hanami and visited an amusement park in Helsinki, it was back to the grind again for a few weeks in school until our module ended. The 'good' news was that summer was approaching now and all the flowers were in full bloom!

I'm not sure what flowers these are but they were so pretty! There was a tree full of them just beside our campus.

We were back to our regular routine of going to school for 3 hours, doing coursework, going home to cook dinner and occasionally grocery shopping.

This car looked just like Mr. Bean's, but in blue!

The next time we took a trip was on June 1st, so let's time travel!

1 June 2018. Friday.

We were taking a module called Intercultural Negotiations at the time, which was pretty much the most interesting module because we just did a lot of different role-plays of negotiation scenarios. It was actually pretty fun!

Anyway, we saw that Onnibus (the inter-city bus service we always took to Helsinki for our other trips) actually travels to other parts of Finland as well, and there was actually a nice-looking touristy area called Savonlinna not too far from Mikkeli! Our classmates recommended we check it out so we decided to take a short weekend trip there.

Getting on the bus! Ignore our messy long hair; we haven't got a haircut in 5 months!

Like Mikkeli, Savonlinna is located within Finland's Lakeland region, and it's actually in the heart of Lake Saimaa - Finland's largest lake. Savonlinna is a beautiful and lively city of around 35,000 people in Eastern Finland. The Finnish name of the town means "Castle of Savonia" and the Swedish name means "New Castle". Unsurprisingly, one of their famous tourist attractions is the Olavinlinna castle which we would be visiting this weekend!

Source: Tripadvisor

Savonlinna actually wasn't too far from Mikkeli, and it took us half the time to travel to Savonlinna compared to Helsinki, so we still had quite some time to explore when we arrived.

The distance and time from Mikkeli to anywhere outside Finland makes it pretty hard for us to travel out of the country. Finland is so huge!

The bus dropped us off at the bus station so we walked through the town to find our hotel, which was across a lake!

This town really is surrounded by water.

On the plus side, we got to enjoy this amazing view while every time we walked to and from our hotel!

Nature sure is beautiful

We were staying at a hotel called Spa Hotel Casino and which was a short bridge away from the main island of Savonlinna.

Here's what it looks like on the map!

And here's the bridge irl

It wasn't a super fancy hotel since it's only 3-stars (and also we're not rich college students), but it was pretty nice and cozy.

The casino is actually a separate building beside the hotel

The lobby had a small gift shop with snacks and toys but it looks like nobody really buys anything from here.

It was gonna be awhile before we could enter our room because they were still cleaning it, so we decided to dump our bags and take a walk into town since it was only around 3pm.

Back across the bridge we go!

It was so cool that we could see the train just out in the open like that. Most of the trains in Singapore are in tunnels or high up above roads.

There were a few boutiques along the main road of town

It was starting to get pretty hot outside so we decided to get some ice cream cones to cool ourselves down while we strolled around town (hey that rhymes 😄 ).

Yummy treats!

After we finished our cones we went inside one of the boutiques that looked H&M-ish.

Checking out the new summer fashions >
This rattan bag reminded us of the old chairs our grandparents always had. >

After grocery shopping for snacks and stuff, we discovered the local movie theatre! We actually did catch a movie back in Mikkeli because we couldn't wait until we got back to watch Avengers: Infinity War!

I actually skipped this since I didn't have a lot of pictures. But this was taken on 1st May, a week after the movie was released! I couldn't avoid spoilers for too long so I had to go catch it asap!

Anyway, the movie theatre in Savonlinna was quite unassuming actually. We didn't even realise it was a cinema at first.

This was pretty much what the theatre looked like from the outside. It was hidden away in some dead end street so we thought it was just a carpark!

Pretty much our reaction to this cinema 😅

We decided to head back to our hotel to check out our room and dump our spoils from the store.

The room was surprisingly big! And pretty comfortable too. Here's a short tour:

After that, we went to grab a snack from Hesburger; Finland's own burger chain!

We got a burger set with fries and a drink. It was really yummy!

We also got their soy fingers! Even though it's not chicken, it's actually really yummy and it quickly became one of our favourite items from Hesburger!

Since we were in the area, we decided to go catch Deadpool 2 at the movie theatre!

The theatre itself was actually a staircase up and it had a small counter area but it wasn't too bad.

After the movie! Sorry for the poor lighting.

We actually didn't realise it at first but it was already 9 PM! I guess our snack was actually dinner! 😅 But it was so bright out still so we decided to walk around some more, even though most of the shops were already closed.

We found a bridge in town and we enjoyed the lovely sunset (at 9:15 PM!).

Look at how bright it still is! We're used to it getting dark at 7 PM because Singapore weather is pretty constant. Welcome Summer I guess.

This shot makes it look like he's standing on water a little bit.

This is probably favourite shot; the way the water reflects the sunset and sky almost perfectly but you can see the ripples is so beautiful!

We decided to get some supper so we Took Pizza Away! (hehe geddit)

Alright well, they had calzones and I wanted to try one after remembering Ben from Parks and Rec so we ordered one and it was huuuuuge!

Highway to the Calzone-zone!

After finishing that huge meat puff we basically crashed in bed. After all that walking we were absolutely beat! And we needed our rest because tomorrow calls for even more walking! 😴

Phew what a long post. Thanks so much for reading! To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!

---

Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://tacocat.steemblogs.club/2019/06/07/tacocats-travels-finland-24-savouring-savonlinna/

---

[//]:# (!steemitworldmap 61.870334 lat 28.902934 long d3scr)

Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels (Finland) #23: Roller Coastin' >