Kemi Snowcastle & Santa Claus Village

On the first night we drove from Jyväskylä to the North. After not getting much sleep, we arrived in Kemi in the morning to visit the Snowcastle. They had planned a lot for it and we also had a coffee in the ice bar. A few hours later, we made another stop to go shopping. Since a few days earlier, the only supermarket in Saariselkä had burned down, we had to plan our shopping for the whole 4 days. Then we continued to Rovaniemi to meet Santa Claus (that's where he officially lives at the North Pole ;)) Santa Claus Village looked great from the outside but was mainly made up of various souvenir shops which was a bit disappointing (and if we wanted to take a photo with Santa Claus, it would have cost over 30 euros). After almost 18 hours, we finally arrived in Saariselkä and settled into our cottage. It was a bit tight for so many people but it had a sauna which we immediately used that evening. Of course, in the Finnish way, with a beer and cooling down in the snow.