The reason we need a better rail service in Australia is… made far more obvious when you catch trains in Europe. Armed with our Eurail passes and private sleeping car reservation, we boarded the train for the overnight journey to Rovaniemi, Lapland, and the home of Santa Claus. The cabin had two single bunk beds that were incredibly comfortable – they come with linens and a pillow. There is a basin unit in the corner that includes cups of water to drink on the way. The head of the bed includes a console with an alarm clock and a power outlet. There is also a pocket on the wall to hold all your essentials. Our backpacks slid under the bottom bunk. You also get access to the shower. I had a pommy shower instead. The idea of going out in -13 degrees with wet hair wasn’t too appealing. We snuggled in for the night on the 12 hour journey north. We weren’t very far north before I peered out the window to gaze upon snow covered pines trees.

Still adjusting to the jetlag, we woke early and utilized the train’s free wi-fi service. A couple of hours before we arrived, we headed to the dining car for breakfast. Train food in Australia is usually pretty terrible – reheated pies and three day old sandwiches but the food on the Finnish trains is actually pretty decent. And compared to Finnish prices more generally, it’s actually quite cheap. For about 7 euro I got a rye bread sandwich with cheese and tomato (still looking for a more interesting option), a large tub of yoghurt and muesli and a café latte (which was the powder with hot water version unfortunately. It was hot, creamy and did contain caffeine.

We pulled into Rovaniemi about 11am in a balmy – 8 degrees. We headed straight to the bus stop to catch city bus number 8 to the Santa Claus village – the cheapest way to get there. The Santa Clause Holiday Village offers a free airport shuttle for guests but not from the train station. The bus was packed and our plan to take the back seat for us and our bags backfired when a young Finnish girl with a five year old joined us. She was quite chatty though and told us she had been to Australia. This was the second Finn we had met with an Australian connection. The waitress in the Pasta Express restaurant lives on the Gold Coast and was back home in Finland for her summer holidays.

Check in for the village is quite late – 4pm so we headed to the Reception to drop our bags off and got presented with all the tour options. Dan was initially keen on the snowmobile safari while I was more partial to the reindeer. At any rate it appeared the chance of seeing the aurora borealis was extremely low – firstly there was very little activity predicted and secondly there was heavy cloud cover. We went away to have a bit of a look around the village and decide.

The village itself is made up of cafes and fast food style restaurants and more souvenir shops than you find in Dublin’s Temple Bar, mostly selling Christmas wares. While not all up to the quality of the Christmas Barn, it is like the Barn on steroids, peppered with Suomi handcrafts. Except there were more than last time I was here. There is also now a holiday village, which wasn’t here last time, the Arctice Park is more impressive than my last visit and there are actually reindeer about. In February the place is a bit like Pissweak World. (The ballad of Hollis Brown – Entombed – a Swedish metal band’s cover of a Bob Dylan classic, somehow feels quite appropriate for this blog given that the most famous other sons of Rovaniemi are Eurovision winners Lordi. Unfortunately the Lordi Rocktaurant visited on my last swing through here is no longer and the leading force of the band now resides in Helsinki. All that remains is the renamed central square – now called Lord Square.)

Our first stop was a café in the main building where we had coffee, a hot chocolate (which Dan wasn’t impressed with) and a scrumptious pastry filled with custard and strawberry jam. We also made a decision on our tour. Instead of spending exorbitant amounts on a tour to see the northern lights when the percentage chance of seeing them was about zero, we opted for a three kilometer reindeer sleigh ride through the wilderness. Really – when else are you going to get to ride in a sleigh pulled by reindeer through actual snow in a forest of real Christmas trees? We had some time to kill before then so we had a bit more of a look around and took some photos. We walked past Santa’s grotto but as I wasn’t prepared to pay the 30 plus Euros for a photo with Santa, I decided going and Sitting on the knee of someone who realistically was probably going to be younger than me was probably a bit weird. Anyway Santa is someone you aren’t supposed to see. For me, this was about the Christmas spirit and the experience of all the Christmas things I can’t get at home – snow, reindeer, the Arctic Circle, Santa’s Post Office – and just some fun in the snow. If I really wanted to sit on Santa’s knee, I could do that in practically every mall in town – a phenomenon I haven’t seen in Finland so far to be honest. (Miss World – Hole – I still think that outside of concept albums, Hole’s Live through This works as an album from start to finish better than any other album I’ve listened to it. A bit of teen girl angst is probably just the thing for a visit to Santa too.)

We decided to head for the Arctice Park, which had just opened. Last time I came, it was practically closed for the end of the season. This time it was still under construction. The upside was that they were only charging 12 Euros entry because of it. When the park is finished it will include some toboggan tracks, an ice skating rink and some igloo hotel rooms. The two important elements were at least partly completed though – the tyre run and the ice bar (even if only a couple of the sculptures had been completed and the lighting wasn’t yet in place. To be honest, it was more interesting to wander through the ice bar structure while it was still being built because we could watch as they do it – there was form work out the back that they clearly packed snow around to build the joining bridges between the igloo shaped rooms. The bar was set up though with cherry flavoured Finlandia vodka and Baileys on the shelf.

From here it was time to rug up, go outside and test out the tyre run. In comparison to what we are used to at home, where five runs down the slope cost about $40-$50 – 12 Euros for unlimited all day access to the runs is great value. It was also more fun – at home the runs are straight down the hill with bumps to make you airborne which really freaks me out. Here the run was designed much more like a luge track (and I imagine the Finns would be pretty experienced at that) with a steep drop off and curved sides. The drop-off itself is a bit nerve-wracking, especially when you are trying to propel yourself over the top without leaving your extremities hanging over the edge. But once you get past that, you get enough speed up for the run to take your breath away but it is well designed so at no point did I feel like I was going to flips over, fall out or go over the edge and you spin just enough to go round the curves. Sure you have to walk back up the hill but it is steep (with stairs carved in the ice) rather than a long way), so it is actually quite good. On my first run I lost my hat in the snow. One of the (very tall) Finnish guys who works there rescued it for me saying that I wasn’t the first and I wouldn’t be the last. But I think that was the beginning of the end for my two Yuan pompom beanie. I tied it around my neck for my following runs, one of which was videoed by Dan.

A few runs was enough to have us clamoring for the indoors again. We decided to grab some lunch before our reindeer ride – the local fast food delicacy – kebab meat served on chips. I went for the reindeer option, which was a bit drier and leaner than the beef. It was OK but like most attractions of this kind, the fast food joint doesn’t really need to be good because it has a captive audience. It was then that the destruction of my two Yuan hat, purchased out of necessity in China in January, continued in earnest. When I reached in my pocket to put it on before we went outside, the pompom on top disintegrated in my hand. Some minor surgery and it was good to go – actually better than before – it stayed on my head better without the huge pompom.

The light was beginning to fade and there was a royal blue haze across the sky. Something magical happens here as the darkness begins to invade the twilight – the Christmas lights and the glistening snow just make it seem like you are in another world. It was the perfect time for our reindeer ride. It was the absolute perfect activity to do here. We snuggled into our sleigh under reindeer hides. There is a reason the Suomi use reindeer hides to keep themselves warm. The hides were about ten times warmer than any of my polypropylene gear was making me and much more snuggly. Our reindeer Topi was harnessed behind the sleigh in front being driven by one of the reindeer herders. He wanted to be Rudolph though – he was constantly trying to get in front or go around the side of the other sleigh. We spent about half an hour riding through the Christmas tree forest in the twilight. It really was a magical experience that I am glad we decided to do. Even better to do with the one you love.

After the ride you can sit and toast a sausage by the fire and drink the Finnish Christmas drink glögi – warm grape juice with cinnamon and cardamom, served warm. The sausage was pretty good too – a mildly smoked wurst of some kind. Frankfurts are really a step above in this part of the world. It was really nice sitting by the fire, although I was carefully avoiding embers lest my synthetic down filled jacket go up in flames. We chatted to one of the women who herd the reindeer about whether they are farmed or not. It turns out that they are actually tagged and then let go in the countryside and then herded during the autumn for the winter months. We also discovered it was Finnish Independence Day (independence from the Russians – yep they were a bit surprised we had to ask). Sitting there by the fire was a really pleasant end to what was a wonderful experience.

It was now getting quite dark and cold but fortuitously it was also time to check in. We got our key and wandered over – the village staff delivered our luggage soon after in a van. The cottage was beautiful, and while it looked a little like the Christmas house from the postcards, you soon realise after a few days in Finland that all the farmhouses here look like that. A red wooden house with white trim and a Baltic pine interior. Accommodation at the Santa Claus Village had the potential to one big plastic tack fest. But this was Finland. Even if it wasn’t Christmas, this would still be a stylish place to stay. Laid out like cabins in a caravan park with a parking space for our non-existent car, each hut had two apartments. Ours was on the right. It had a verandah out the front with table and chairs, a kid’s toboggan and a sled (for ferrying the kid around -ours just stayed chained up) and a tastefully decorated Christmas tree (just a spruce with golden lights. Inside was even more impressive, the ceiling was Baltic pine – the lights were (fake) reindeer antlers, there were snowflake motifs on the walls, and the bathroom contained its own sauna. There were subtle Christmas touches but the whole thing was done with panache.

Before we settled in, we pulled our cold weather gear back on and headed up to the ice bar for a drink – Dan had a beer and I had a Baileys in an ice glass. Ice bars are a dime a dozen in Scandinavia these days but it was cool to enjoy one that was built inside an igloo that would only be there for the winter, rather than one created in a normal bar. The (very tall) Finnish guy who had rescued my beanie served us and sat down for a chat. We talked about the perils of kangaroos and reindeer on the roads and he explained that it was really easy to build the igloos – they just blow up a giant balloon and form the ice around it. I bet that’s not how the Eskimos did it! After our drink, we headed back to our apartment for a snooze.

A couple of hours later we awoke just in time for dinner. The great part about staying here in December is that there is a buffet dinner and breakfast included in the price. The bad part is that the dining hall was full of overly excited kids running around. Not what you are really looking for when you first wake up. There is a kid’s menu and which consists of universal kid favourites like chips, nuggets, fish fingers and meatballs. The adults buffet, although it didn’t look too impressive, was really tasty – beef bourguignon, potato bake or rice, honey carrots, salads and lots of fabulous Finnish breads. For dessert there were cheese and crackers, and fruit. After consuming our fill we headed back to the cabin to snooze contentedly.

We awoke early and decided to give the sauna a go. I gave up after about five minutes. I really hate sweating – which is why generally I prefer winter. If I wanted to sweat from just sitting there I could just sit in one of the upstairs rooms in our house after three 30+ days. Dan on the other hand wanted to stick it out and he did for about another 20 or 30 minutes, getting the temperature up to 65 degrees. Then we went back to sleep for a couple of hours. I got up and went for a bit of a walk to take some photos of the fresh snow that had fallen overnight.

We went and had breakfast to recover from our hectic morning of chilling out. I am a firm believer in booking hotels with buffet breakfast, especially in expensive destinations like Finland. You may pay more for the hotel but you get a really comfy night’s sleep and if you load up on breakfast, you don’t need lunch or sometimes even dinner. The buffet was pretty good for the type of hotel this was – there were scrambled eggs, bacon, little frankfurts, Scandinavian choices and lots of breads, I drank Cranberry juice,  had a bit of eggs and bacon and then hoed into pickled herrings and boiled eggs on rye bread, the Scandi way. Dan stuck with the familiar, backing the bacon and eggs up with cheese and salami. I have gotten used to drinking percolated coffee again – the quality here is much better than espresso or latte and the cups are quite often bottomless. I am actually convinced the only place in the world that serves flat whites is Australia. I have never found one anywhere else.

After breakfast we (sadly) checked out and trekked down to the husky farm. The huskies were different to the ones we see in Australia or maybe they were yet to grow their full winter coat. While they were keen if they thought there was food to be had, these dogs were bred for working not patting so you were warned to keep fingers away from the cage. They had an older dog that was just out in the open but he was too busy snoozing. Others were snoozing too, including one curled up Charli style in the snow – of course Charli does that inside a warm house on her mat instead. There was a patting dog at the entrance – not a husky, a bitsa who, like our Charli, wanted you to keep patting. Unlike Charli, this one didn’t complain though.

From there we wandered through the fresh new snow in the forest along the freshly groomed cross country skiing trails. There is quite a network around the village and the town of Rovaniemi. After a quick stop by the reindeers, it was time for mass consumerism. What really happened of course is Dan sat down somewhere while I flitted through every souvenir shop in the village (I am pretty sure there are more than 20). A new decoration and fridge magnet in hand (and sans the fab stylized husky pillowcase that was just a bit more than I wanted to pay, I headed to the Santa Claus post office to send cards to those who missed out last time. It was a complete nightmare. I am pretty sure every tour bus in Northern Europe had chosen this particular day to visit. The 2:45pm bus was a pipe dream. We lined up to find out when the next one left (they were on a Sunday timetable) and I was greeted by an Australian woman who said she came here every year she loved it so much – pretty good working holiday. I also discovered that for 50 Euro cents you can get your passport stamped for Lapland. So I did. Not sure how that goes down with the Passport authorities but it now says I’ve been to Lapland so who cares.

We stood outside and waited for the bus – didn’t want to miss another one. It came pretty quickly and we waved goodbye to Santa Claus and headed in to Rovaniemi for the evening. That’s when it happened…

(Ghosts on the Boardwalk – The Bouncing Souls. Again one of their lesser known songs – about summer holidays. But I do so love the Bouncing Souls)

Christmas themed activities – 3  War museums and model shops – 0