The dilapidated villas of Kruunuvuori creek and groan with age; their end is nigh. And yet as the last rays of the day pierce the canopy, the mansion before me reveals its former splendour. The debris on the ground melts away, the trees retreat from view, and the house stands, erect and proud again, to command its position overlooking the gulf of Finland.
Whilst Super Mario can sprint across the Mushroom Kingdom in under 5 minutes, Lithuanian Vytautas Kirkliauskas can navigate the course of the World Wife Carrying Championship with his wife on his back. No burden is too heavy for this super husband.
Utsjoki is the most northern municipality in Finland, making it the absolute outer edge of the European Union. The mighty Tana, a 250 mile long river that snakes through both Finland and Norway emptying (eventually) into the Barents Sea, forms the backbone of this tiny village…
In Joseph Conrad’s masterpiece (or indeed Apocalypse Now, a film heavily based on it), the protagonist treks for days and days in treacherous conditions towards The Heart of Darkness. He is confronted with increasingly bizarre and disturbing objects, symbols and actions that demonstrate the savagery of the native people.
I’m minded of this I pull into a roadside shop that is selling Sami art…
I ploughed on up through Finland until I finally reached the Arctic circle. As the so called home of Santa Claus, I’m sure Rovaniemi has its charms in the snow-capped months of midwinter, but in the middle of summer it has an ambience so surreal that it could have come straight out of a Ray Bradbury story.