Finland- Tampere

After our brief visit to Turku, we hopped on a bus for a couple of hours to Tampere. 

This town is two hours north of Turku and sits between two great lakes.

It is also known for many festivals and parties. Here we didn't take may photos but, did a lot of walking around parks. visited some museums (including the ice hockey and Spy museums). We also did something we swore we wouldn't do in our year... we went to an Aussie bar! so shameful but still, the apartment we rented didn't have Wifi, and we needed to book bus tickets, on the upside we got to watch some of the ashes.  

we also had some rest days here and did a lot of nothing on these days. and discovered that Finland is great for another reason... mostly everything is closed on Sunday! and those things that were not closed (mainly restaurants and supermarkets) were only open for 3-4 hours from 12.even large chain stores like H&M were closed.  

Our main reason for visiting this time was to visit the Ice Hockey Museum. We are both missing ice hockey very much and cant wait until the NHL season starts again and to come back and watch the mustangs play next year! 

anyway... below are some of the awesome fun times we had there...

Nic at the entrance to the Ice Hockey Museum

 They also had an awesome simulator game where you try and score in a few different scenarios... it was uber fun and we spent a fair bit of time in it... lets just say we need a bit more practice :)

 Another great site in Tampere is the forest/park and the observation tower from which you can see the two lakes that surround the city
The tower is also known for their amazing cinnamon doughnuts which as very yummy, they have an extra flavour to normal doughnuts, but we couldnt quite place it... they were well worth eating though... after going up the tower, we went for a walk through the park lands and enjoyed some of what makes Finland a great place to visit.

Chilling on our walking break 

Our final lot of pictures for this town were in a park outside a church... they explain themselves... i think we may be going a little crazy with all of this travelling...not ;)