Day 13: No more sea

Actually, it doesn't make a difference whether you wake up on a ship or not - that was the first realization of the day.

Afterwards, we went to the breakfast room, where there was damn sour yogurt, extremely soft rolls (this trend continues since Sweden) with toppings, and hot chocolate to mix without hot water. Despite everything, we had breakfast in a good mood and looked forward to the day.

The way back to the room ended at the first door because our card no longer worked. After the receptionist, who didn't seem surprised, reactivated it, we were finally able to pack up and leave.

Our first destination was Turku Castle from the 13th century. This is the largest surviving medieval building in Finland and has been changed several times in the meantime - for example, a bailey was added during the Renaissance. The castle, formerly built on an island, is now fully connected to the mainland due to land uplift.

Turku Castle was built by the Swedish Empire as one of the administrative seats of Österland - now known as Finland. Over the years, it has been frequently occupied and recaptured by various Russians, Swedes, and Danes, and has served as a granary, distillery, military camp, and prison at times. Several kings resided here, voluntarily or involuntarily.

After the castle was partially abandoned for a while, restoration and the establishment of a museum began already in the middle of the 19th century - at this time, the castle still partially served as a prison, by the way.

Today, the museum, after the damage caused by the Continuation War in 1941 has been repaired, is very large and beautifully designed. The respective building sections were furnished in the style of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the 18th century. In addition, the eventful history of the city of Turku is reported, and there are exhibitions on specific topics - so now Lena finally knows how people sat on a saddle a few hundred years ago.

After retrieving our backpacks from the lockers, we made our way to the train station - unfortunately, to the wrong one, as quickly became apparent. After a few minutes of confusion, we embarked on an involuntary city tour and eventually reached the correct train station with mediocre mood. Here we now had two hours to rest and eat sandwiches before the train to Tampere departed.

Arriving there, we surprisingly had few problems orienting ourselves and finding the right bus to our accommodation. This showed that we had been warned unnecessarily about the silence and poor English of the Finns, as all the people we encountered on our way were very friendly and helpful.

After a short time, we arrived at the accommodation, which we have all to ourselves this time. The bed is cozy, we have wifi and instant noodles in our bellies - a good condition for a few episodes of Red Oaks and a little beauty treatment. 😄

But now it's time to go to bed, tomorrow a museum full of small, white, fluffy creatures from Finland is waiting for us!