Food 2016 – The Helsinki Cocktail

Here’s the recipe! I highly recommend it though I haven’t personally attempted to make it myself yet. Helsinki Cocktail 2016 30 ml Greenall’s Bloom Gin 10 ml Bols Parfait Amour 30 ml lemon juice 15 ml sugar syrup 20 ml egg white 4 basil leaves Method: shake Glass: jam jar (on the rocks) Garnish: basil…

Travel 2016 – Home, Day 20

Day 20 – Saturday 23rd July (Aalst, Home) Moose count = lots of pictures of them! We left Aalst after yet another very good hotel breakfast and scooted straight to the nearest branch of Delhaize, my favourite Belgian supermarket chain. While Lynne stayed with the car, I hit the wine department, stocking up for the…

Travel 2016 – Haikko, Helsinki, Travemünde, Lübeck, Days 17-18

Day 18 – Thursday 21st July (Haikko, Helsinki, Travemünde, Lübeck) Moose count = Nope. Nada. Zilch. What moose? There are no moose! Finland has no moose! Finland needs no moose! With the ferry scheduled for 15:00 latest check in there wasn’t a great deal of time to achieve anything much. We “scientifically” packed the car,…

Travel 2016 – Imatra, Hameenlinna, Akaa, Haikko, Day 15

Day 15 – Tuesday 19th July (Imatra, Hameenlinna, Akaa, Haikko) Moose count = what do you think? Zero! That’s how many! We were back in the realm of the slightly surreal again this time, but first we needed to check out of the hotel after getting our own breakfast sorted. For the third time I Iet…

Travel 2016 – Lappeenranta, Day 14

Day 14 – Monday 18th July (Lappeenranta) Moose count = still not a one! We got up in a spirit of adventure ready to see if the hotel breakfasts were any better than their dreadful dinners. They weren’t. With an hour still to run most things had run out (there was no fruit left apart…

Travel 2016 – Savonlinna, Kuopio, Joroinen, Imatra, Day 13

Day 13 – Sunday 17th July (Savonlinna, Kuopio, Imatra) Moose count  = Possibly in a stew! Also, one stuffed moose (but the museum was closed)! Today was the day we had to move on again. This time we did a somewhat illogical side trip to Kuopio en route to Imatra. If you look at the…

Travel 2016 – Savonlinna, Day 12

Day 12, Saturday 16th July (Savonlinna) Moose count = does a photo of a moose count? The day started with a quick trip to the market to get supplies to have with the lörtsy for dinner, and to extact some items from the car like maps and guidebooks. The kauppatori at Savonlinna is smaller than…

Travel 2016 – Tampere, Jyvaskyla, Juva, Savonlinna, Day 11

Day 11, Friday 15th July (Tampere, Jyvaskyla, Juva, Savonlinna) Moose count = not a damn one, no moose here, why do you ask? This was another travelling day. We needed to be in Savonlinna by 16:00 at the latest so we made a reasonably early start and dragged all of our luggage back downstairs from the…

Travel 2016 – Tampere, Day 10

Day 10 – Thursday 14th July (Tampere) Moose count = not a single one! Today the weather was much improved after the storms of the previous night and for us it was all about Tampere. The apartment was in the middle of a building site (some sort of tunnel seems to be under construction, for…

Travel 2016 – Turku, Day 8

Day 8, Tuesday 12th July (Turku) Moose count = still none! I started the day by going for a run, foolishly assuming I would find my way back really easily. I hadn’t thought that the river I crossed might be more complicated than it seemed, and that there could be more than one area full…