Saturday 23 June 2007

Day 10 - Linnanmaki & Tampere

In the morning it was time to say goodbye to the hotel and make our way over to the airport to greet the majority of the club coming over from the UK.

Bye bye hotel!

We decided to make good use of the business centre in the hotel and make stupid signs with which to embarrass the club. It was well received..........by most! Having got on our coaches (3 of them) we then headed off to Linnanmaki.

At a welcome session with the park owner he explained that the park exists to generate money for local children's charities and not profit, something we definitely wouldn't get in the UK. He also commented that the majority of the workforce were girls in their early 20s, which he liked! After that we headed out into much better weather than the day before, the downside to that is that with it being so nice first thing in the day lots of people were in the park. Whilst we had plenty of time in the park those of us who had been there the day before didn't have to run around to nail everything, and we made a point of just chilling out and eating lots of sweets from the park's sweet shop; well I was on holiday...

Kirnu was well received.




That's the killer hump!

Patrick looks ready to ride, Mark just apprehensive!


The park's Top Spin, sounded like it was going to break; a lot of squeaking. Maybe it's hamster powered like the Tower of Terro ride being built in Paris.

Even the mundane rides like the rainbow had decent queues, but the great thing about parks on the mainland is that they run the rides properly and move people through them very quickly.

Random stone theming.

The park's observation tower, we decided to use it get some pics.

The scenic

The powered electric mouse ride.

A better shot of the scenic railway.

The water splash of doom ride.


Tulireki

The ghost train ride was pretty decent from what I remember. They have some really good ones in Scandinavia.

They also have some excellent fun houses. These are generally pretty poor in the UK and US so often avoided. We had to convince a few of the club that they really ought to see what a funhouse should be like and give these a go.

Keith and Yvonne with some ham on the eggs.

After leaving Linnanmaki we then headed to the third biggest city in Finland, Tampere. This was going to be our base for three days, which is pretty cool as on these trips that doesn't happen often and we wouldn't have to pack and unpack each day. It also meant that we had evenings free to see the city, which was great here as there was a rock festival in town.


There are quite a few churches in the city but this is the Cathedral close to the centre of the city.

Tampere sits between two lakes, one higher than the other and the waterway Tammerkoski that joins them is a natural source of power. So there are quite a lot of plant type buildings and even today three power stations and dams along it.

The most famous bridge over the river is the Hameensilta, a popular meeting place for people and statues.


This is the main square where we had dinner that night. Every year the city has a 5 day rock festival and the main stage is in the city. I thought I'd try some Finnish Festival Food (try saying that with your mouth full!) and the food stands were here. Amongst the massive platters of meats and veg I picked out a stall selling a "special selection", which was a large plate consisting of some of everything that was being sold elsewhere; very nice it was too, if a bit too much (but I had to eat it). A tip for the vegetarians amongst you; you're well catered for here (pun intended) with a good selection of veggie food.


This is the main tent in in the centre of the square, and the band here sounded pretty decent playing some original stuff and covers of Metallica and the like. Last time I was here the music had an 80s feel to it, with bands playing Bon Jovi etc. This time around it was a lot better.

We left the main square and headed down to the river. Not much going on here but we could hear a second stage in the distance so headed towards that.

As in Tallinn some of the original buildings in the city were being redeveloped but retaining the original structure.

This was the second stage, sponsored by Fosters.

The tent was much smaller and contained less people but there was still a good friendly vibe here. We stuck around for a little bit, especially as there was a Jagermeister tent close by.

Tammerfest has a mix of succesful and upcoming bands. The biggest acts this year were Rasmus and funnily enough Suzanne Vega. Rather oddly Lordi weren't in attendance, which was odd given that they were the biggest rock act in Finland following their win at Eurovision a year or two ago.

Not in attendance at Tammerfest '07

Back to the hotel at the end of nice relaxing alcohol fueled evening.

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