A tick on my bucket list

When we heard about an opportunity to visit Lapland as a regional retreat by YPO Gold, (YPO Gold is an organisation of people who have crossed the age of 50 & are variously phased in their life, Retired, planning to retire & somewhere in between), Urvashi my wife instantly said yes & we booked our seats to Helsinki & then Rovaniemi (around the Arctic circle)

While we flew KLM via Amsterdam, the best flight if one is only doing Lapland is to take a flight from Delhi to Helsinki direct (chances of baggage being left reduced, as one of our bags got left by KLM at Amsterdam) Finnair arrives in the afternoon. There are many hotels in Helsinki. We stayed at the Kamp hotel quiet in the centre of the city.

One can & should stay in Helsinki for 2 days to get the local sights, the rock church, the old church, &. A visit to the botanical gardens is also suggested (we did not go there due to paucity of time) There is a fortress island which one must visit. Ferries go there every 30/40 minutes & one can spend a couple of hours there. One could also plan a day’s trip to Tallinn a quaint Estonian town. It’s a full day trip & if planned well in advance can be done in 2 1/2 days stay in Helsinki. It’s a 2-hour boat ride on a large ship that may carry up to 5000 people. This ship has restaurants as well. 

Helsinki has a lot of good restaurants which also conjure great vegetarian meals. We had a 16-course curated tasting meal at Ravin tola Palace. The best restaurant is Ravin tola Demo. If you’re a vegetarian, it’s a good idea to let them know in advance the no. of vegetarians expected. It’s a good idea to book the restaurants in advance which are easily possible from here. There are a lot of other choices if one does not go the Michelin route. 

The flight to Rovaniemi is about an hour. We landed there surrounded by fresh snow everywhere. There are a lot of hotels there. We stayed at the North Arctic hotel, a boutique hotel. When we arrived in the evening, we had dinner & rested for our next day’s adventures. During winter perhaps not later than the end of March, one can go on a snowmobile & ride it on the river, it truly was a great experience. Lunch was at Amarillo a Mexican restaurant, very close to the hotel. From there, our bus took us to Santa village about 20 minutes from the hotel. A visit to the Santa Village is quite interesting, with a post office where one can send postcards to their grandchildren as we did. There is a separate post box for Christmas greetings & normal postcards, one can post a Christmas greeting in March & it would be received by the recipient around Christmas time A few souvenirs & were off to the hotel.

After a bit of rest, we travelled to a restaurant Poropirti, which is about 20/25 minutes from the hotel. The restaurant was booked for us only, but a smaller group of people can book individually as well. While we were drinking, eating & dancing, someone shouted that the Northern lights were visible. We were fortunate to see the lights which were dancing in gay abandon, as we were before the sighting. Initially one just saw streaks of a clouds cover, and the cameras of our phones captured the colours. While green was most prominent, we saw the pinks, the reds & the oranges as well. As time progressed, we had seen enough for around 20 minutes capturing the vibrant colours in the sky, we walked back to the restaurant to dine. Suddenly there was a call asking to come out fast. What we saw the spellbound us completely. The colours were very visible & the cameras captured more; the lights were dancing & regaling us with their antics.

Some of our friends went further on to chase the northern lights. They did see some but nothing as spectacular as we had already seen. We were elated returning back & danced & sang on the ride back to the hotel.

The next morning, we went on a long drive into Sweden & went on an icebreaker ship, seeing the ice being broken as we moved forward. This ship is an engineering marvel. The first ice breaker ship was made in 1917. The one we sat on was made in 1976 & had everything original including the electric panel. The ship runs on 2 engines of 8 cylinders each & creating 10,000 HP to move forward while breaking the ice. We stopped after about an hour & we went in the water (a created area) with our floatation suits. Lying there watching the sky was an exhilarating experience. On another side of the stationary boat, we walked onto the iced sea. Danced to some Bollywood songs. The captain allows me to visit his cabin on return & the view from the top was fabulous, to say the least. We returned in the evening very exhausted. The restaurant Nest serving Asian cuisine was right across from the hotel where we had a quick dinner & retired for the evening.

The next day we checked out & late & went for the Husky rides. That was an interesting experience. This was on a Husky farm & they shared a lot of information about the Husky dogs. During winter they consume around 10,000 calories of food a day. After the ride we petted the dogs for a photoshoot. We then went to a restaurant having a spectacular view. The food was decent as well. Vegetarians must inform the restaurants in advance. From there we drove to the igloo hotel. These are modern igloos with a glass ceiling & if one is lucky, one can see the Northern lights lying on the bed. We then proceeded to the Ice hotel where everything was made from ice, multiple rooms, a chapel, a bar, and a restaurant. This is made sometime in late October or early November & melts sometime in April.

In the evening we drove to the Bears’ den a place where many heads of State have been entertained. There was a sauna there & a 100 feet away was an ice-cold water man-made pond. Initially, I hesitated to go to the sauna & the chilled pool, but after seeing a lot of friends I went to the sauna & took a plunge in the chilled pool. I enjoyed it & went to the sauna & returned to the pool again. (BTW this experience can be had in many places in Finland) Interestingly there are over 2 lakhs saunas in Finland. Can be found in almost all homes & our room in North Arctic had one as well.

We slept the night in the Igloo hoping to sight the Northern lights again, but sadly luck was not on our side as they, perhaps, were dancing elsewhere.