Arctic Circle (3 of 5): Rovaniemi

The city of Rovaniemi sits at the confluence of two rivers ( the Kemijoki River and its tributary, the Ounasjoki). Rivers are always important strategic points in war and Rovaniemi found itself in this situation in WWII. At the end of the war when German soldiers were retreating, they destroyed the entire city. Literally. The bombed out the bridge and leveled nearly every building.
90% of the city was leveled. Have you ever been in a city built entirely in the 1950s? Not really very inspiring architecturally. Starting with a blank slate Alvar Alto (of course) designed a new street layout that looks like reindeer antlers ... ... and new municipal buildings. We never ventured out far enough in the cold to see those buildings. Maybe they were more interesting than the main street.

One morning, though, we did walk down the pedestrian mall to the river. We saw this ...
... an Alvar Alto sculpture of the Northern Lights.

After the war they re-build the railroad bridge and then, more recently, added this bridge a bit further down river.
Short bench?
No, just lots of hard-packed snow.
In Lapland you can make a snowman that stays all winter long.
Kalee takes a bow.
Now, a few state, according to wikipedia:

• average temperature: +0.2 °C (+32°F)
• annual rainfall: 535 mm/annum (21 inches)
• snow stays on the grounds 183 days a year on average
• lowest temperature ever recorded: −47.5 °C (−54°F), recorded on January 28, 1999
• highest temperature ever recorded: +30.6 °C (+87°F)
• the midnight sun can be seen from June 6 to July 7