Ho Ho!!!! Santa claus is coming your way…

First of all wish you all a very merry Christmas!!! May all your dreams come true,May Santa bring Joy and Luck to you..

So lets begin the journey to meet Santa himself and to less unknown world of Arctic Circle.

From childhood i always wanted to meet Santa. So when I was in Helsinki I decided to make my dream come true and planned a trip to Rovaniemi – The Official Hometown of Santa Claus.

Rovaniemi:

Rovaniemi is a city in the Finland’s northernmost province, Lapland.It is the capital of Lapland and official land of Santa.

You can refer these sites for Info: Rovaniemi Info

 When to Visit:

Rovaniemi can be visited during Winter time(mostly preferred) or during Summer time.

Winter time:

Northern Light’s:  The Northern Lights are best viewed on clear nights between late August and late March.

Winter sports

Summer time:

Midnight Sun : Rovaniemi basks in the light of the Midnight Sun from early June to early July.

summer activities and events

September is the time of Autumn Leaf Color, and nature virtually explodes into a spectacular display of earthy hues

 How to Reach:

By Air:

Daily flights between Rovaniemi and Helsinki are operated by Finnair and Norwegian throughout the year

By Road:

Finnish railroads are operated by state company VR. Rovaniemi is easy to reach by rail from many Finnish towns, with several trains running to and from Helsinki every day.

Rovaniemi is easy to get to by car from all directions.

 Where to Stay:

There are good and cheap options in rovaniemi for staying, you can refer the below link Booking Hotel

 What all to See:

• Santa Claus
• Northern Lights
• Arctic circle
•  Midnight Sun
• Ranua Wildlife Park

 

 

 

Planning begins 

Now that i definitely want to go to rovaniemi , lets plan how, with whom, budget,accommodation, flight tickets, sight seeing.

What I actually Did:

First part was convincing someone to come along, which is the toughest one. After convincing 7 friends finally 1 friend actually showed interest and the trip date was freezed – 24th July 2015. I visited rovaniemi during the summer time as I was going back to India on 15th Aug 2015.

I got a great deal and I booked the return train tickets from Helsinki to Rovaniemi for 64 Euro per head. Out train was from Helsinki to Ollu and Ollu to Rovaniemi, if we took direct train , it was expensive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total Journey time – 15 hours one side(some buffer time)

We booked hotel borealis. It is good guesthouse near to railyway station and has clean rooms with basic towel, clean bedsheets, free WiFi, guest parking and kitchen. They also provide you breakfast in the morning.

Total Cost – 60 euro per night.

We started our exciting journey with a cup of coffee- Kulta Katrina.

Initial Plan:

Day 1 25th July 2015 – Visit Santa Claus Village.

Have great lunch and dinner.

Roam around the city

Watch Midnight Sun

Day 2 26th July 2015 – Visit Zoo

Artikum

Back to helsinki with great memories.

Trains all over the Europe are always on schedule. We reached rovaniemi at around 11 AM in the morning. We rushed to our hotel following the instructions mentioned in the map.

Plan for the day was to spend the entire day at Santa clause village, come back and have a little party and see the midnight sun. But as soon as we reached Bus top our plan went for a toss as the last bus for Santa clause village had already left so now we needed to change our plan as below

Actual Plan:

Day 1 25th July 2015 –

Visit Artikum

Have great lunch and dinner.

Roam around the city

Watch midnight sun from the balcony(as we were drunk).

Day 2 26th July 2015 – Visit Santa Claus Village

Visit Zoo

Back to helsinki with great memories.

We decided to visit the artikum , roam around city, have Mc d burger, have some drink and just relax.

Artikum is nice but not that great, may be we had lot of expectations from it, but it was a different experience . Some glimpse of it.

The day ended with nice finnish Vodaka – koskenkorva and some nonsense talks. Overall the day was not as expected but still it was lot of fun 🙂

Day 2 Sunday :

We got up early, backed all our luggage, had breakfast (cornflakes, fruits, milk/coffee, juice,cake,muffin, bread butter , jam, eggs) and headed straight to the bus depo to catch our bus to Santa claus village.

It was a small 10 seater bus. We reached the village in about 30 min. This was the best part of the trip atleast for me, not for him – he wanted some snow and sledging and all but hello!!!! it is summer time, how can you expect snow. …

Anyways i was very happy and did everything as per plan.

Met Santa – Huge queue , had to wait for 40 min but it was all worth it.

Sent letters to my near and dear ones 🙂

Got my letter of certificate – Artic circle.

Clicked many pictures and had lots of fun

Then we checked the bus to the Zoo but it was already late and we didn’t had much time so we decided to go by cab instead – it cost us 270 bugs 😦 but its okay it happens..

Okay now the zoo is far from the city , you can visit this if you really want to see some wild arctic animals else you can skip it. The charges are 12 euro entry fee per head.

We took the same cab back to our guest house, took our luggage , packed food from indian restaurant and headed station to catch our train to helsinki.

Do let me know did you like this article and also if you have any questions/ suggestions post in the comments box below.