Day Fifty Nine Friday 16th September

It was an entirely peaceful night after all, and I slept very well. We went to bed with empty parking spaces all along the Strand in both directions, and emerged this morning with them all full. Free all day parking for people working in the City!

Before leaving Turku we did a circumnavigation of the fortress, on foot. It was worth seeing properly from the outside, very similar in style to other castles we have seen, but much bigger. Although it has grass and some trees around it, it is basically surrounded by the Ferry Terminal! Imagine building a full-scale Ferry Terminal all around Bamburgh Castle!

A quick visit to the TIO, and we left the city behind and set off to explore the countryside towards the coast between Turku and Helsinki. First priority for tonight was much needed showers and electric hook up, so we headed for a Camperstop which had these. Our Camperstop Book has been of limited use since we left Denmark, and has only two pages of entries for the whole of Finland.

The countryside is a huge change from the blue-green of Sweden. More open fields, and the wooded parts have a lot of deciduous trees. The trees are beginning to change colour and it is looking Autumnal, but it is still warm and sunny. So with the colours of the trees, the brighter green of fields mixed with some harvested fields, and the sun everything looks very golden.

Our stopover has proved adequate for our needs; in the car park of a roadside cafe place, i is not dissimilar to where we spent our second night in Sweden all those weeks ago where we had to decamp! It is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, at Ylongyla, although the road is quite busy. There is a 'summer kitchen' which we can use if we wish. Inspection showed it to be a building with large unglazed windows, looking as if it had been deserted in mid meal. There were pans of food on the stove, a large fish marinating in a saucepan and various foodstuffs and piles of kitchenware stacked up. We had been told that it was used by 'workers', people who lodged there but were out at work all day. We think we will give it a wide birth.

We had a walk into the "village", which consists of a wooden church which just looks like a house, a 'monument' which gives no clue as to what its purpose or claim to fame might be, a monstrosity of a modern house with some menacing black cars parked outside, padlocked gates, and signs warning of security cameras, and a very few other dwellings. A very strange little place.

Fortunately we had found a good supermarket on our way here, and have a nice supper of some fresh fish, and the lovely fresh tomatoes we bought yesterday,,cooked with fresh herbs to look forward to. When I can stir myself to prepare it!