Porvoo, a City of Old

Since we've rented a car, today was the day to take it out and drive to the lands outside of Helsinki. My boyfriend had the plan to go to many different places around the shore and then drive up to the lakes. A place I have found on the net, which I wanted to check was Porvoo (called  Borgå , as it is called in Swedish), which is an old, Medieval town that has conserved some of the old houses. He agreed into Porvoo, as it was on the way to the other cities he was interested in, like Loviisa and Kotka, which he wanted to visit before drining up to the lakes.

As it happens, nature came in the way, so I made it only to Porvoo, with later on a litte detour to a place called Sondby, which looks out ot the Gulf of Finland, which in the end goes into the Baltic Sea.

If I can say so, the Baltic Sea - as much of it as you can experience from Sondby - is nothing like what I've expected from a sea. It's not so salty (yes, we tasted it, thank you), it's rather calm, and the beach is surrounded by a forest, with actual pines growing in the sand. Pines! For someone who has spend vacations at the Pacific Ocean or the Caribbean, a sea like this one is simply astonishing. I oicked up pineapple pines to keep them as souvenir, to remember the beach where instead of shells, you dig pineapple pines from the sand.

I saw the Baltic Sea... it's no longer an unknown name on the map for me anymore!

Porvoo, which we actually visited first, was the most beautiful, charming little city I've ever seen. Though there are parts where you can go in with your car, a large part of the old city was kept and now it can all be visited walking around it.

Though Europe is still wrapped in the asfixiating embrace of summer, Finland stays inmune to the melting love of the season, which is why with great amazement my boyfriend and I witnessed as people in Helsinki, but particularly in Porvoo, walk around in summer wrapped in winter coats and scarves. The old building house many beautiful stores that sweetly mix between souvenir stores that look more like little boutiques, traditional restaurants (some offering even traditional, organic Finnish food!) and artisan shops with many aged products made of wood, glass and I believe even reindeer antlers. People here is very friendly and ready to help you. We've got a tourist guide for free (in French) from a store owner who tried to explain us how to get to a quite famous reformist church - which actually gives name to an inter church agreement between Anglicans and Lutherans.

Some things can't be helped, and my boyfriend getting really ill from his tummy was one of them. I hope it's just a case of indigestion, and not a more serious thing, like a stomach flue or something like that. :-( Be it as it may, our planned trip got shortened, but I'm not sad. This is more than what I've expected to know, what I expected to see, and I loved it.

Back at the hotel I tried out the sauna and remembered what a pleasure it is to walk around stark naked, with no worries and judgements. Then I had a terrible dinner -  what I ordered was far beyond my expectations - but it all got better at the bar with two glasses of Lapponia Polar Cranberry and a very good conversation with a pleasant German gentleman, who later on insisted on picking up the tab. It made me smile. We talked about the world, politics, economics and even Empress Elisabeth of Austria (the man was actually from Bayern!), and as thanks we insisted in paying the bill. Honestly, for his sweetness and the great conversation, I felt like doing the same.

It's nice to know that there's still pleasant, smart people in the world with whom you can still have a great conversation.