Day 3: Tampere to home via Helsinki

We didn't have to check out of our apartment in Tampere until midday today, so we were able to have a leisurely start to the morning. Our main aim for the day was to visit the Moomin museum, which is located not far from where we were staying.

The little statue of Moomintroll which I found yesterday stands outside.

I thought he was really cute   

We bought our tickets and went inside.

The museum features all kinds of original drawings by Tove Janssen, arranged in order of the books in the series.

There were some fantastic models of different scenes from the books, but the lady in charge of the museum explained to Tim that we weren't allowed to take photos either of those or of the drawings for copyright reasons.

We really wanted some photos for the next issue of the Esperanto magazine which Tim edits. In the end, the lady offered him a press pass, which enabled him to take general photos of the rooms in the museum (but not of specific pictures or models).

That was good and meant we got some photos at least

It was fun to walk around the exhibition and see the different characters. There were some displays were you could press a button and listen to parts of the stories in different languages, including in Russian, so I was even able to get some language practice in  

It was mid-afternoon by the time we'd finished exploring the museum so we decided it was time to leave Tampere behind and press on to Helsinki, where we're flying home from this evening. The train to Helsinki took around two hours. When we arrived we emerged from the station into a very familiar square.

We've caught the overnight train from Helsinki's main station to Kolari in Lapland on several occasions.

Today we just had time for a meal in our favourite Nepalese restaurant in Helsinki, which we normally eat in before catching that train. By the time we had finished eating, darkness had fallen.

There were still Christmas lights up in a few places in Helsinki.

We found the main cathedral, which looked beautiful lit up at night.

We also found the Orthodox church, which is pretty too.

Then it was time to walk back towards the station and catch a train towards the airport.

Our flight home isn't scheduled to arrive in Stansted until 22.50, so I suspect we're both going to feel quite tired in the morning. But it's been a really fun - and unexpected - bonus weekend in Finland