Arctic Circle (1 of 5): On the Train

Wednesday Feb 17th we boarded the train in Jyvaskyla for a three-train 8-hour journey north to Rovaniemi and the Arctic Circle. Our route is in red.The trains were great. Kalee and Charles had a lot of fun exploring each train, going between cars and walking from one end all the way to the other. Some of the trains (the new high-speed ones) have play-cars for children ...



... and a game room where we played yatzee.
These new trains are quieter than some of the older ones we road on, but when it gets up to top speed - 140 km/hr or 90 mi/hr - the whole thing shakes and bumps so much we could hardly drink our coffee and Charles could barely write down our yatzee scores.

And here is what we saw of the Finnish country side.
Trees ....
trees ...
trees ...
frosted trees ...

harvested trees ... [there is a huge timber industry, here, but no deforestation because over 100 years ago they passed a law that you have to plant a tree for every tree you cut down. Seems to be working as the vast majority of the country side is still forested despite seeing train after train full of logs.]
a few farms ...and lots of old train stations.