[Paul B]

Nat and I have been invited to a wedding in Jyväskylä, Finland in ~July. Due to timings we'll need to fly in and out of Jyväskylä as Helsinki is a bit pushed for the return the day after the wedding (and I suspect I may not be in a condition to drive).

We'd thought we might be able to fly in Jyväskylä, head to Turku and do the Archipelago trail or shortcut (time dependent) before heading back but accommodation appears to be a bit sparse.
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Archipelago_Trail

Apart from cooking myself in a sauna, can UKB shed any light on things I should try and fit in? I'd be really psyched to do something vaguely active as it'll be the first non-climbing holiday in a while and after a few days last time (Marrakech) I was twitching.

(Half-hearted) apologies for the somewhat lazy post 

[TobyD]

Hi Paul, I've not been myself, but I have a Finnish climbing friend who will be able to help. I'll send you a contact on Facebook. He taught me to play apparently classic Finnish drinking game piku sika.... Recommended, but not if you want to be able to do anything at all the next day... It's supposed to be an amazingly beautiful country. Have a good time!

[andy popp]

I love Finland! I've been to Helsinki a couple of times but also had a two week holiday with a few days in Helsinki and the about 10 days in the Turku archipelago. If you have good weather the very best thing to do is to find a nice quiet beach on an island and swim. Summer swimming in the Baltic is the best sea swimming I've ever enjoyed, magical. In my experience, when the weather's good in Scandinavia in the summer its just about perfect. Turku's a really nice city to spend an easy day in. The Handicraft Museum is worth checking out. Its not really a museum but a wood build C18th neighbourhood that was the only part of the old city to survive a fire: https://www.turku.fi/en/handicraftsmuseum. I also enjoyed the pharmacy museum - https://www.turku.fi/en/pharmacymuseum - another old property that has survived. I am, though, a huge history buff, so this might not appeal to everyone.

Its a shame you can't make Helsinki though.

Oh, and go swimming!

[Paul B]

Thanks for the replies.

Toby - no, it doesn't have to be. The holiday did also coincide with a rather large deadline (that's now slipped until a week or so after I return  ) for work that's eating up the majority of my time ATM. In the past few years I've been finding that at least the first few days, if not the first week of any climbing trip seems to be recuperation from work before I start feeling "on it" (/we're not tearing strips off each other on MP holidays). With another engagement I can't really see there being time for both #firstworldproblems.

We've managed to re-jig the flights so we'll have a few days in and around Turku so I think the shortcut route might be feasible Andy (Turku > Nagu > Turku, Clockwise).

[andy popp]

We've managed to re-jig the flights so we'll have a few days in and around Turku so I think the shortcut route might be feasible Andy (Turku > Nagu > Turku, Clockwise).

Great! You're going to love it.