Midsummer Trip

Temperature about +21. Sunny, but strong and cold wind from the northwest.

We decided to go to see midsummer life somewhere on the outskirts of Helsinki city center by mopeds, but a little far from the crowds. When driving a moped close people you have to be careful, and concentrating on watching around should then be forgotten. Security in a crowd today was also a bit of a concern to us. We ended up in Seurasaari, an island and a district known mostly as the location of the Seurasaari Open-Air Museum, which consists of old, mainly wooden buildings transplanted from elsewhere in Finland and placed in the dense forest landscape of the island. The height of the island's popularity is at Midsummer, when a huge bonfire is built on a small isle just off the island's coast, and ignited by a newlywed couple. This year, however, there wasn't a bonfire because of forest fire warning. 

We still wanted to see the maypole's erecting. The maypole (tall wooden pole) belongs to the midsummer traditions of the Swedish-speaking coastal regions of Sweden, Åland and Finland. Bars are placed crossing the long, flagpole-like stem of the pole, which are decorated with flowers and leaf vines. It is said that midsummer pole originated from shipping, as it resemble the masts of a ship.

In the picture the pole is almost there, over ten men were pushing it up. Then we began to go home. But first we bought Italian ice-cream when landed from the island. In Extra you see the bridge between the land and an island.

Evening was quite cold because of the wind, and we were very cold. So on the way home warm pizza came to our mind and close home we went to take an Italian pizza with us. Very nice tree hours Midsummer trip :)