Day 6: Saariselkä

We decided to go out for dinner last night and try a new Italian restaurant in Saariselkä. I had a pizza, which I'm pretty sure wins the prize for best pizza I've ever had in Finland.

Based on the quality of other pizzas I have had in Finland, it is not actually a high bar to clear. There was the tinned peach pizza I had in Kiilopää over the summer...

...and this one drizzled in béarnaise sauce which I had at a different restaurant in Saariselkä back in 2023.

I think yesterday's pizza would have been recognised by Italians as actual pizza, so definitely a big improvement Not sure whether the Italians would recognise the lasagne Tim had as actual lasagne, though; it was made with reindeer ragu and topped with crisps.

It remained very cloudy overnight, so no northern lights. When we got up this morning we found that it was a bit warmer than yesterday; around minus 7.

There was a digger busy outside, clearing snow away from roads and driveways.

As we walked down the main road, I realised that the locals had turned a frozen lake into an ice hockey pitch.

This is what it looked like here in summer:

We'd enjoyed climbing to the top of the Kaunispää fell on Tuesday, so the plan was to repeat that walk today.

As we set off, I noticed some footprints that looked like they might have been left by an arctic hare. We caught sight of one in the woods once on a previous holiday, but no luck this year.

As we made our way up the hill, we passed all kinds of beautiful snowy trees.

The weather was still extremely cloudy, so the colour of the sky and the colour of the snow were essentially the same.

As we got higher, the clouds meant we couldn't see very far into the distance.

It was still a beautiful walk, though.

And as you can probably tell, I never get tired of taking photos of the trees!

I just went back and had a look at last year's photos on Kaunispää and the trees were surprisingly green up here too.

They definitely didn't look like that this year!

Some of them seemed to have frozen in quite unbelievable shapes!

This solitary tree marked the point at which we knew we were almost at the summit.

Everywhere looked so white today that my phone camera struggled to focus and pick out the Saariselkä sign against the background of snow and sky.

We made our way towards the restaurant at the top of the hill to warm up.

It's very warm and cozy inside...

...and always cool to see how snowed over the windows are from inside.

We had the same meal as on Tuesday. Just as we were finishing eating, two large coaches full of Chinese tourists arrived and it became a bit less peaceful!

I'd seen some people climbing to the top of the triangulation tower when we'd arrived earlier, so decided to give it a go and see whether it was possible in winter.