Did you know, that Finland is the 64th biggest country in the world when it comes to area but only 115th biggest measured with population? According to Wikipedia, Finland’s population density is only 16,3 /km². I would lie if I told you I didn’t notice this feature when travelling around Finland this summer – so many kilometers and just a few people.
Finland is a country of thousands of lakes, but I would say that most of the landscape is covered with woods. This is not a bad thing. Finland’s nature is truly amazingly beautiful and pure. Many tourists from another countries hardly believe that this kind of place does exist and they have never breath air this fresh.
This summer I decided to be tourist as well and take a road trip to my precious home country. My company was my boyfriend and our stops were: Lapua, Kauhava, Kalajoki, Kuopio, Joroinen, Savonlinna and Punkaharju. Then we came back home to Tampere.
Since we traveled basically in western and in eastern Finland I couldn’t help at noticing the cultural differences between these two areas. I have always lived in the west, so eastern nature and people seemed different than I’ve got used to.
Eastern people are very peaceful and laid-back compared to western people. A Finnish word called “lupsakka” describes eastern people perfectly, but I think there isn’t an English word for that. The nature, for it’s part, had a lot more hills and water, different kind of trees and believe it or not animals, too! We were truly scared of some kind of noisy grasshoppers in Savonlinna.
What I’m trying to say here, is that there really are different kind of cultures inside this huge country and you can be surprised even when exploring inside your own country’s borders!
– Niina –
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