Our Finnish friend drove us to Oulu, so we could continue our trip. At first we wanted to just take a night bus to Turku, from where we had a flight. But then we thought ‘when else we would be in Oulu?’ The answer was ‘we don’t know’, so we used our chance to take a closer look at the city.
Our apartment
The apartment that we booked on airbnb.com was located in a quite neighborhood close to the sea side. We love Finland because it is always pretty, it is full of plants and flowers, gardens are very well taken care of and general atmosphere is calm and relaxed.
The apartment was on the ground floor and had a view to the yard and seaside.
There were books about history of Oulu, but unfortunately, only in Finnish. There were other books (even Russian), some classics, but also in Finnish. Anyway, as a book lover I enjoyed thumbing them as they had also pictures and maps of the city.
Architecture
Based on the surrounding buildings we had a feeling that we stayed at a quite fancy area. There were many new buildings and they looked just great. I like simple shapes and big windows. We could see how balconies were designed into a dining room or a reading space. It looked very nice.
We took a walk to the yard of this island-quarter. People who live there have a really great sea view, especially at the sunset time.
Together with this modern-styled quarters there are also wooden buildings that saved their charm from the past.
Details
Finland is one of the countries where people pay a big attention to details. Small things that make places more cosy, interesting and nice.
Seagulls are a quite common problem in Finland due to its access to the sea. We faced it the first tie in Helsinki, at the port. Even though there are nets suspended above the whole territory of the port, the birds find their way to the food market.
Once I was going out of the Old Market building holding my bread with shrimps and a seagull swooped out of nowhere and almost got my food! I was shocked. So these signs are very actual.
Oulu cathedral
The main cathedral of Oulu was initially built in 1777. Later, in 1822 it was destroyed by a major fire. It was fully restored by 1845.
Nowadays it is used not only for religious purposes, but also as a concert hall for music events. We have seen one going on inside. It sounded nice.
The church in Oulu seems to be quite progressive and with a good sence of humor as we have seen the following:
Behind the main building of the cathedral we saw a cute small building of an unknown purpose.
Nature in the city
Oulu is the biggest city in the North of Finland. Its population is around 200,000 people. However, it did not give us an impression of a hectic and busy place. On the contrary, we were walking relaxed and enjoying the nature around us.
Moving on
On the day of our departure we got a pouring rain during the whole evening. So we didn’t have much options, but to wait for our bus at the train station (the bus station is outside and only has some roof).
Shortly before our departure time the rain stopped and we headed to the bus station. It was peaceful and quiet. We were glad that we decided to take some time to see Oulu. It is a nice place to have some rest and enjoy the beauty of Finland.
Read about the last Finnish city in our route in the next post.