LuckyWinner

It made me

How I did it: My bf and i drove from Saint-Petersburg to a ski resort Tahko in Finland (through the cities Vyborg, Lappeenranta, Kuopio) - that's more than 500 km. We left a city with plus temperature to find ourselves in the land of snow, high rocks and giant pine-trees. If it doesn't come to you, you come to winter wonderland!
The biggest challenge was to find our Guesthouse in a small city of Alapitka. We made 2 (wrong) turns after a road sign that read Alapitka, saw the lights in the middle of a field and got out of the car excited... to find a cowshed! We laughed to tears, got back into the car, returned to the road sign and started from scratch getting deeper and deeper into the dark forest by a narrow road that resembled an ice-rink. After an hour and a half of wandering around we finally came across the place we were looking for and were greeted by a tiny Finnish lady that looked relieved to see us. She said she thought we were not coming. The guesthouse was fantastic: spacious room with a wide-screen TV and a nice clean bathroom. Oh, what more do you need after a long journey! Can't say the skiing was great - there was not enough snow during our stay so part of the slopes was still closed. But.. I tried snowboarding for the first time in my life! Well, more like i just learned to hold my balance on a board, and not to fall down after 10 seconds, but hey - still counts!
Then there was a long drive from Tahko to Helsinki (about 450 km). Considering that in Finland they have sometimes ridiculous speed limits, high fines and maps impossible to read without special training, it took us almost 7 hours to get to our hotel in the capital of the country. We got lost a little on the way, searching for the place, but people in the streets were really helpful (also mostly drunk, aparently still celebrating long national holidays). You can imagine my boyfriend was exhausted from all this driving, but after we spent 3 days in Helsinki sightseeing, enjoying the food and shopping he seemed fully recovered and happy. Read how I did it… 16 months ago