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lupestripeThe second day of our Finland/Estonia trip was to deliver our third Brewdog bar in the Finnish city of Tampere. I had been here twice before, both times to visit furries, and yet this time around no-one was interested nor available to meet up. I wondered why this was and how it was so much easier to meet up with furs in the earlier days of the fandom, but the fact we were on our own didn't detract from what was an incredible day. Indeed, because it was just Wolfie and I, we managed to take in many of the sites of the city, much of which I had somehow missed during my previous visits.
We boarded a train to Scandinavia's largest inland city - a fact I did not know before venturing on this trip - at 10:25am having had a rather pleasant breakfast at the hotel. We were, as usual, quite early and ended up wandering around the station aimlessly for half an hour before boarding our carriage. With guaranteed seat reservations, it was pretty straightforward to find our place and the journey was all rather comfortable as we raced across the fertile Finnish countryside. The train ride was just over an hour and a half, with the landscape becoming more and more lake-orientated the closer we got to our destination. In the end, the train was about ten minutes late arriving into Tampere, but this didn't seem to matter as I was just delghted to be back in a place that had gotten under my skin over a decade ago.
It's amazing how experiences can colour your view of a place, and this was certainly a predominant feeling as I walked around Tampere. Objectively, it was a little small and dull, yet I remember falling in love with the city when I first went there. We spent a lot of time drinking beer near the Tammerkoski rapids, the the passage of water that splits the city in two, but this was in July and at a bitingly cold 3C, this was not an option for today. Indeed, it was so cold that it even snowed while we were walking around the gothic Kalevan church at the eastern flank of the city centre, making the surrounding grounds incredibly pretty but not overly pleasant to be in with a thin springtime coat. It was here that I managed to pick up a geocache hidden inside the trunk of a tree, meaning I picked up my Finnish souvenir, which was something of real delight. We also got to walk around inside the church for a while but we didn't stay too long as we feared there may be a dress rehersal for a wedding or something going on. We didn't want to intrude. It was telling that a number of the outside bars were closed, which was a shame as we did want to try some local beer. We did, however, stumble across a brewery and distillery in the heart of town that did look promising and having walked up the main high street to get to the church, Wolfie's knee was already starting to cause him problems, so we thought we would go for a pit stop. The beers at Teerenpeli were fantastic, with us able to sample quite a few of them as they did tasting trays of 100ml measures. We also saw their delightful rabbit-themed posters for the burlesque events called 'Tease' that they run, one in paper form on the back of the toilet and one on a screen above the bar which kept cropping up on rotation every twentieth time or so. Pouncing from my seat to get a picture during the ten seconds it was on screen was a challenge, but I did it in the end. The lady behind the bar was really friendly here and we let her choose the beers we would try based on her own recommendations, while we also decided to grab some lunch here, going for cold reindeer and goat's cheese sandwiches. It was a traditionally Finnish combination, it being served with pickles and tomato (which I picked out) and toasted, and made for an incredible meal. It was also much larger than I expected, which was something.
On the way up to the church, we had stumbled across the market, tucked just off the main street. We were enticed in as we wanted to see the range of beverages that Alko sold, which was not as extensive as its Swedish equivalent, Systembolaget. It was an education though, as was a walk around this rather quaint market of wooden concessions painted in light blue below a modest wrought iron ceiling. The range of shops here was extraordinary, with local produce and exceptional quality, and it was great drinking all of this in as well as the atmosphere as the place was rather busy. While we were walking up the main street, we did notice the huge amount of construction work going on, with the whole tram system being replaced. This meant there was very little traffic on the roads and was perhaps one of the reasons why it didn't feel quite as homely as I thought it was going to be.
After Teerenpeli, we walked around the town some more, stumbling across the Finlayson buildings. In the late Victorian era, one in four industrial workers in the whole of Finland worked in these industrial units which weren't too dissimilar to the cotton mills of northern England. Founded by a Scot, James Finlayson, in 1820, it started producing a cotton eight years later and eight years after that, it was sold to Russians Wilhelm Nottbeck and Georg Rauch. Throughout the nineteenth century they produced cottons and textiles that were mainly sold to Russia. The mill eventually closed in the 1980s and the site today is an entertainment area with bars, a cinema and a large number of museums. This made it quite a buzzing place and it was fascinating walking around the labrynthine constructions and getting a sense of what it must have been like when the claustrophobic streets were leaden with smog. In one of the squares, where there's an odd statue of a boy and a stage set up for children's theatre, I also managed to grab another geocache, which made me pleased at least. The huge brick chimney plonked right in the middle may be one of my favourite parts here.
After our trip around here, we walked back towards the rapids, viewing them from the top which I don't think I did ten years ago either. Before this, we witnessed a lady trying to get her shibu inu dog to sit still on a plinth overlooking one of the main industrial squares as she was desperate to take a photograph. Back to the rapids, and after overlooking them, we walked by the river for a while, enjoying the genteel pace of life here. There was a geocache nearby but it was near a children's play area which I thought may look inappropriate, while with the time pushing 3pm, Wolfie and I were torn over what to do. We really wanted to go to the Moomin Museum but this was about a half hour walk away and Wolfie's knee was causing trouble again. Furthermore, Uber isn't a thing in Tampere so we would have to chance it with a regular taxi, which were few and far between. As luck would have it though, we noticed that the Brewdog bar was pretty much en route to the Moomin Museum so we decided to have a gentle stroll there and pick up our badge before heading off for some Moomin action.
The Brewdog bar was right next to the bus station on the other side of the main road to the Finlayson building. Hidden in some whitewashed light industrial units, the entrance was somewhat understated but we did find it eventually. The bar staff were very interested in this being our 51st bar, giving us the stamp we had sought after as well as our small measures of beer. The bar itself was quite pleasant but I worry a little too far out of town, although it was reasonably busy for 4pm on a Saturday. There was a football match on at the nearby stadium however and it's difficult to know if this was a factor in the number of people in. We didn't come across any football fans though, and nor did we see the Moomins either, realising that with Wolfie's duff knee, we would only have about half an hour of time there before it closed. I did lambaste Wolfie, somewhat unfairly, for wasting some time by having a brew log in Brewdog but we patched this tiff up pretty quickly, largely by looking at the impressive Orthodox Cathedral on the other side of the road to the bus station. Perched on a hill, it was a testament to Finland's Russian past, but alas the main entrance was locked so we could only view it from the outside. There was also a strange concrete monolith with huge scratches in it standing in the courtyard in front of the church - I have no idea what that was about.
After our Moomin mission had been curtailed, we were at something of a loss regarding what to do. Jumping onto Google, we realised that there were a number of other museums in the city, and many of them closed at 6pm rather than the 5pm time that the Moomin place did. Unfortunately for us, and particularly for Wolfie's knee, the museums were all the way back at the Finlayson buildings on the other side of town. This would just be a ten minute walk usually but with Wolfie's knee starting to bark, we had to limp our way there gingerly. Fortunately, en route, we did get to see Tampere's cathedral, another building that had somehow eluded me ten years ago. Built between 1902 and 1907, it's a beautifully understated stone building not looking too dissimilar to the masonry you would see in a dry stone wall. The red roof gave it a picture postcard quality, as did the stone archway leading into the main complex. It was here that a geocache was located, which I picked up before heading up the ten or so stone steps (with which Wolfie struggled) before heading inside. The church is famed for its frescos, which were controversial at the time they were painted in 1905-06. The painting of a leather-winged serpent on a red background at the highest point of the main vault was particularly controversial as it contained a ring of small wings as if an angel guard around it. The serpent is symbol of sin and the angel corrollary is a metaphor for its capture and constraint, but the idea provoked much discussion at the time. Being not a fan of snakes, seeing this with an apple wedged in its mouth evoking the Adam and Eve story was quite terrifying. The other striking aspect of the frescos was the garland of life which runs around the edge of the galleary. Borne by twelve naked boys who represent the twelve disciples, this too was not without controvery, nor was the alterpiece reflecting the resurrection of peoples of all races. However, for me, the most striking aspect of the cathedral was the stained glass windows, particularly the pink one in the shape of a cross which cast the springtime sunlight so beautifully.
The lack of a guidebook had made our trip to Tampere somewhat scattergun and disorganised I contemplated as we headed back to the Finlayson area of the city. Tucked behind here is the Vapriikki, which is pretty much eleven museums in one. We only had about an hour here, which was nowhere near long enough, but we did get to look at the National Ice Hockey Museum which was my primary target. Apparently there are only five ice hockey museums in the world and it was great to discover how the sport developed from the early twentieth century to the present day. There was also a load of cool memorabilia in here too, jerseys and trophies and the like, both from a Finnish domestic perspective and internationally. Everything was explained in context and the video presentation on entry, highlighting some of the Finland's national team successes, definitely held the exhibition together. The interactive exhibits where you could try and score a goal were also great for kids while the Ice Hockey Hall of Fame is also here so it was good to see all the people who had been inducted from players, to referees to league/team owners and organisers. Although ice hockey isn't really my sport, it was certainly a fascinating glimpse into this world.
Many of the exhibitions in the Vapriikki were quite small, so we also managed to take in The Finnish Museum of Games, which certainly interested Wolfie. What we didn't realise was the sheer number of games developed in Finland, so it was fascinating to chart this history. However, not being a gamer myself, I decided to split from Wolfie and head down to the exhibit on Tampere itself, entitled the Tammerkoski Rapids and the Story of Tampere. Here it was charted the growth of the town from a small village to the major industrial centre in Finland, with extensive background on the Finlayson building itself. A number of models charted the growth of the town through the ages while there was also interesting cultural aspects such as the music and politics of the region. I just about got through this part of the museum before it closed, which was a shame as there were a few other exhibitions that I would like to have checked out, but alas you can only do what you can do in the timeframe you have and we did at least get to see the things we had intended to. The Vapriikki itself is a former warehouse and you could still see some of the lifting cranes which were still there in situ. I do like it when you can see the history of a building.
Upon leaving the museum, we walked around the gardens near the river, seeing Arja Renell's Maaltamuutto sculpture as we went. We then headed back into the city centre, swinging back through the Finlayson complex and assessing the geography that enabled industry to develop on the Tammerkoski Rapids. I would have liked to see the lake, which we could glimpse, but Wolfie's knee could stand little more. Interestingly, at the Finlayson building, we saw the first place where an electric light was installed in Northern Europe on 15 March 1882. It was 6:15pm by this point so we still had three hours before our train. We had debated going to the burlesque evening down at Teerenpelli but Wolfie rightfully pointed out we could do that in the UK. I was just hoping it was rabbit themed, like their posters, but maybe that was expecting too much. We had spied an interesting looking brewery house and restaurant just off the main street so we headed over there. This necessitated cutting through the main square, where there was a singer/songwriter performing on a stage with a guitar. Seats were laid out and a number of people had braved the bitterly cold wind to see the concert, so we decided to hang around a few minutes to take in the melodic scene. It was rather pleasant, but Wolfie wanted food so we pushed on, navigating the construction work on the main street before arriving at the Pyynikin Brewhouse. They had a range of different beers and conveniently you could get 200ml tasting trays, which meant Wolfie and I could share a glass rather than get one each (our minimum sample measure is 100ml). This enabled us to try twelve of their beers over some food, which in my case was fish and mashed potato and in Wolfie's was an interesting vegan schnizel made out of seitan. My fish were lightly battered in butter, with the whole fish being visible, which I'll admit was a little off-putting. However, it was a Finnish national dish and thus worth trying, and I did find it delicious, particularly the dill-infused mashed potato.
The table where we were sat was reserved for later in the evening, so we could only spend two hours in the bar. Once our time was up, we still had an hour to kill until the train, so we popped over to the R-Kioski store over the road to pick up some expensive toothpaste, as we had run out. We then tried to look for a coffee shop or bar that was open, but there was very little. In the end, we had to settle for a Mexican-themed cafe in the train station where we got to watch some hockey before an elderly suited businessman asked us in Finnish whether he could put the news on. We couldn't understand him and he tried in English, eventually making himself clear, at which point we consented. We then just sat there for about half an hour, enjoying a local variety of cola and waiting for our train. With fifteen minutes to go, we headed up to the platform, waiting in the little heated lobby area which had been constructed over the escalators for some reason. It was getting increasingly cold by now and the five minutes we waited on the platform weren't pleasant, meaning it was something of a relief when the train arrived. I had booked first class on this as it wasn't much more expensive, meaning Wolfie and I sat opposite each other and got a table area to ourselves. We also got complimentary tea and coffee, which we used quite a bit. We were going to try some train beers but we were trying to limit our alcohol consumption, plus we learned thereafter that you are only allowed to drink alcohol on a Finnish train in the restaurant car, which did resemble something like a bar. The alcohol prices on the train were very high, but I did manage to pick up a non-alcoholic brew from the KOFF brewery, which we could drink at our first class table. This is what I did, largely because we had paid for the seats and the bar was busy anyway. There were only two other people in the carriage - a guy who crunched sweets intermittently incredibly loudly and a business woman who didn't enjoy Wolfie and I conversing. Still, it was a pleasant trip back to Helsinki and even though Tampere did underwhelm slightly, it was great visiting the city again. I just wish some furs had come to meet us. However, Sunday in the Finnish capital was to be very furry fuelled so upon arriving back in Helsinki, we just decided to head back to the hotel and prepare for a busy day ahead.
We boarded a train to Scandinavia's largest inland city - a fact I did not know before venturing on this trip - at 10:25am having had a rather pleasant breakfast at the hotel. We were, as usual, quite early and ended up wandering around the station aimlessly for half an hour before boarding our carriage. With guaranteed seat reservations, it was pretty straightforward to find our place and the journey was all rather comfortable as we raced across the fertile Finnish countryside. The train ride was just over an hour and a half, with the landscape becoming more and more lake-orientated the closer we got to our destination. In the end, the train was about ten minutes late arriving into Tampere, but this didn't seem to matter as I was just delghted to be back in a place that had gotten under my skin over a decade ago.
It's amazing how experiences can colour your view of a place, and this was certainly a predominant feeling as I walked around Tampere. Objectively, it was a little small and dull, yet I remember falling in love with the city when I first went there. We spent a lot of time drinking beer near the Tammerkoski rapids, the the passage of water that splits the city in two, but this was in July and at a bitingly cold 3C, this was not an option for today. Indeed, it was so cold that it even snowed while we were walking around the gothic Kalevan church at the eastern flank of the city centre, making the surrounding grounds incredibly pretty but not overly pleasant to be in with a thin springtime coat. It was here that I managed to pick up a geocache hidden inside the trunk of a tree, meaning I picked up my Finnish souvenir, which was something of real delight. We also got to walk around inside the church for a while but we didn't stay too long as we feared there may be a dress rehersal for a wedding or something going on. We didn't want to intrude. It was telling that a number of the outside bars were closed, which was a shame as we did want to try some local beer. We did, however, stumble across a brewery and distillery in the heart of town that did look promising and having walked up the main high street to get to the church, Wolfie's knee was already starting to cause him problems, so we thought we would go for a pit stop. The beers at Teerenpeli were fantastic, with us able to sample quite a few of them as they did tasting trays of 100ml measures. We also saw their delightful rabbit-themed posters for the burlesque events called 'Tease' that they run, one in paper form on the back of the toilet and one on a screen above the bar which kept cropping up on rotation every twentieth time or so. Pouncing from my seat to get a picture during the ten seconds it was on screen was a challenge, but I did it in the end. The lady behind the bar was really friendly here and we let her choose the beers we would try based on her own recommendations, while we also decided to grab some lunch here, going for cold reindeer and goat's cheese sandwiches. It was a traditionally Finnish combination, it being served with pickles and tomato (which I picked out) and toasted, and made for an incredible meal. It was also much larger than I expected, which was something.
On the way up to the church, we had stumbled across the market, tucked just off the main street. We were enticed in as we wanted to see the range of beverages that Alko sold, which was not as extensive as its Swedish equivalent, Systembolaget. It was an education though, as was a walk around this rather quaint market of wooden concessions painted in light blue below a modest wrought iron ceiling. The range of shops here was extraordinary, with local produce and exceptional quality, and it was great drinking all of this in as well as the atmosphere as the place was rather busy. While we were walking up the main street, we did notice the huge amount of construction work going on, with the whole tram system being replaced. This meant there was very little traffic on the roads and was perhaps one of the reasons why it didn't feel quite as homely as I thought it was going to be.
After Teerenpeli, we walked around the town some more, stumbling across the Finlayson buildings. In the late Victorian era, one in four industrial workers in the whole of Finland worked in these industrial units which weren't too dissimilar to the cotton mills of northern England. Founded by a Scot, James Finlayson, in 1820, it started producing a cotton eight years later and eight years after that, it was sold to Russians Wilhelm Nottbeck and Georg Rauch. Throughout the nineteenth century they produced cottons and textiles that were mainly sold to Russia. The mill eventually closed in the 1980s and the site today is an entertainment area with bars, a cinema and a large number of museums. This made it quite a buzzing place and it was fascinating walking around the labrynthine constructions and getting a sense of what it must have been like when the claustrophobic streets were leaden with smog. In one of the squares, where there's an odd statue of a boy and a stage set up for children's theatre, I also managed to grab another geocache, which made me pleased at least. The huge brick chimney plonked right in the middle may be one of my favourite parts here.
After our trip around here, we walked back towards the rapids, viewing them from the top which I don't think I did ten years ago either. Before this, we witnessed a lady trying to get her shibu inu dog to sit still on a plinth overlooking one of the main industrial squares as she was desperate to take a photograph. Back to the rapids, and after overlooking them, we walked by the river for a while, enjoying the genteel pace of life here. There was a geocache nearby but it was near a children's play area which I thought may look inappropriate, while with the time pushing 3pm, Wolfie and I were torn over what to do. We really wanted to go to the Moomin Museum but this was about a half hour walk away and Wolfie's knee was causing trouble again. Furthermore, Uber isn't a thing in Tampere so we would have to chance it with a regular taxi, which were few and far between. As luck would have it though, we noticed that the Brewdog bar was pretty much en route to the Moomin Museum so we decided to have a gentle stroll there and pick up our badge before heading off for some Moomin action.
The Brewdog bar was right next to the bus station on the other side of the main road to the Finlayson building. Hidden in some whitewashed light industrial units, the entrance was somewhat understated but we did find it eventually. The bar staff were very interested in this being our 51st bar, giving us the stamp we had sought after as well as our small measures of beer. The bar itself was quite pleasant but I worry a little too far out of town, although it was reasonably busy for 4pm on a Saturday. There was a football match on at the nearby stadium however and it's difficult to know if this was a factor in the number of people in. We didn't come across any football fans though, and nor did we see the Moomins either, realising that with Wolfie's duff knee, we would only have about half an hour of time there before it closed. I did lambaste Wolfie, somewhat unfairly, for wasting some time by having a brew log in Brewdog but we patched this tiff up pretty quickly, largely by looking at the impressive Orthodox Cathedral on the other side of the road to the bus station. Perched on a hill, it was a testament to Finland's Russian past, but alas the main entrance was locked so we could only view it from the outside. There was also a strange concrete monolith with huge scratches in it standing in the courtyard in front of the church - I have no idea what that was about.
After our Moomin mission had been curtailed, we were at something of a loss regarding what to do. Jumping onto Google, we realised that there were a number of other museums in the city, and many of them closed at 6pm rather than the 5pm time that the Moomin place did. Unfortunately for us, and particularly for Wolfie's knee, the museums were all the way back at the Finlayson buildings on the other side of town. This would just be a ten minute walk usually but with Wolfie's knee starting to bark, we had to limp our way there gingerly. Fortunately, en route, we did get to see Tampere's cathedral, another building that had somehow eluded me ten years ago. Built between 1902 and 1907, it's a beautifully understated stone building not looking too dissimilar to the masonry you would see in a dry stone wall. The red roof gave it a picture postcard quality, as did the stone archway leading into the main complex. It was here that a geocache was located, which I picked up before heading up the ten or so stone steps (with which Wolfie struggled) before heading inside. The church is famed for its frescos, which were controversial at the time they were painted in 1905-06. The painting of a leather-winged serpent on a red background at the highest point of the main vault was particularly controversial as it contained a ring of small wings as if an angel guard around it. The serpent is symbol of sin and the angel corrollary is a metaphor for its capture and constraint, but the idea provoked much discussion at the time. Being not a fan of snakes, seeing this with an apple wedged in its mouth evoking the Adam and Eve story was quite terrifying. The other striking aspect of the frescos was the garland of life which runs around the edge of the galleary. Borne by twelve naked boys who represent the twelve disciples, this too was not without controvery, nor was the alterpiece reflecting the resurrection of peoples of all races. However, for me, the most striking aspect of the cathedral was the stained glass windows, particularly the pink one in the shape of a cross which cast the springtime sunlight so beautifully.
The lack of a guidebook had made our trip to Tampere somewhat scattergun and disorganised I contemplated as we headed back to the Finlayson area of the city. Tucked behind here is the Vapriikki, which is pretty much eleven museums in one. We only had about an hour here, which was nowhere near long enough, but we did get to look at the National Ice Hockey Museum which was my primary target. Apparently there are only five ice hockey museums in the world and it was great to discover how the sport developed from the early twentieth century to the present day. There was also a load of cool memorabilia in here too, jerseys and trophies and the like, both from a Finnish domestic perspective and internationally. Everything was explained in context and the video presentation on entry, highlighting some of the Finland's national team successes, definitely held the exhibition together. The interactive exhibits where you could try and score a goal were also great for kids while the Ice Hockey Hall of Fame is also here so it was good to see all the people who had been inducted from players, to referees to league/team owners and organisers. Although ice hockey isn't really my sport, it was certainly a fascinating glimpse into this world.
Many of the exhibitions in the Vapriikki were quite small, so we also managed to take in The Finnish Museum of Games, which certainly interested Wolfie. What we didn't realise was the sheer number of games developed in Finland, so it was fascinating to chart this history. However, not being a gamer myself, I decided to split from Wolfie and head down to the exhibit on Tampere itself, entitled the Tammerkoski Rapids and the Story of Tampere. Here it was charted the growth of the town from a small village to the major industrial centre in Finland, with extensive background on the Finlayson building itself. A number of models charted the growth of the town through the ages while there was also interesting cultural aspects such as the music and politics of the region. I just about got through this part of the museum before it closed, which was a shame as there were a few other exhibitions that I would like to have checked out, but alas you can only do what you can do in the timeframe you have and we did at least get to see the things we had intended to. The Vapriikki itself is a former warehouse and you could still see some of the lifting cranes which were still there in situ. I do like it when you can see the history of a building.
Upon leaving the museum, we walked around the gardens near the river, seeing Arja Renell's Maaltamuutto sculpture as we went. We then headed back into the city centre, swinging back through the Finlayson complex and assessing the geography that enabled industry to develop on the Tammerkoski Rapids. I would have liked to see the lake, which we could glimpse, but Wolfie's knee could stand little more. Interestingly, at the Finlayson building, we saw the first place where an electric light was installed in Northern Europe on 15 March 1882. It was 6:15pm by this point so we still had three hours before our train. We had debated going to the burlesque evening down at Teerenpelli but Wolfie rightfully pointed out we could do that in the UK. I was just hoping it was rabbit themed, like their posters, but maybe that was expecting too much. We had spied an interesting looking brewery house and restaurant just off the main street so we headed over there. This necessitated cutting through the main square, where there was a singer/songwriter performing on a stage with a guitar. Seats were laid out and a number of people had braved the bitterly cold wind to see the concert, so we decided to hang around a few minutes to take in the melodic scene. It was rather pleasant, but Wolfie wanted food so we pushed on, navigating the construction work on the main street before arriving at the Pyynikin Brewhouse. They had a range of different beers and conveniently you could get 200ml tasting trays, which meant Wolfie and I could share a glass rather than get one each (our minimum sample measure is 100ml). This enabled us to try twelve of their beers over some food, which in my case was fish and mashed potato and in Wolfie's was an interesting vegan schnizel made out of seitan. My fish were lightly battered in butter, with the whole fish being visible, which I'll admit was a little off-putting. However, it was a Finnish national dish and thus worth trying, and I did find it delicious, particularly the dill-infused mashed potato.
The table where we were sat was reserved for later in the evening, so we could only spend two hours in the bar. Once our time was up, we still had an hour to kill until the train, so we popped over to the R-Kioski store over the road to pick up some expensive toothpaste, as we had run out. We then tried to look for a coffee shop or bar that was open, but there was very little. In the end, we had to settle for a Mexican-themed cafe in the train station where we got to watch some hockey before an elderly suited businessman asked us in Finnish whether he could put the news on. We couldn't understand him and he tried in English, eventually making himself clear, at which point we consented. We then just sat there for about half an hour, enjoying a local variety of cola and waiting for our train. With fifteen minutes to go, we headed up to the platform, waiting in the little heated lobby area which had been constructed over the escalators for some reason. It was getting increasingly cold by now and the five minutes we waited on the platform weren't pleasant, meaning it was something of a relief when the train arrived. I had booked first class on this as it wasn't much more expensive, meaning Wolfie and I sat opposite each other and got a table area to ourselves. We also got complimentary tea and coffee, which we used quite a bit. We were going to try some train beers but we were trying to limit our alcohol consumption, plus we learned thereafter that you are only allowed to drink alcohol on a Finnish train in the restaurant car, which did resemble something like a bar. The alcohol prices on the train were very high, but I did manage to pick up a non-alcoholic brew from the KOFF brewery, which we could drink at our first class table. This is what I did, largely because we had paid for the seats and the bar was busy anyway. There were only two other people in the carriage - a guy who crunched sweets intermittently incredibly loudly and a business woman who didn't enjoy Wolfie and I conversing. Still, it was a pleasant trip back to Helsinki and even though Tampere did underwhelm slightly, it was great visiting the city again. I just wish some furs had come to meet us. However, Sunday in the Finnish capital was to be very furry fuelled so upon arriving back in Helsinki, we just decided to head back to the hotel and prepare for a busy day ahead.
