Did you know that from Finland you can take a quick cruise to at least three countries? You can cruise to Estonia, Sweden and Russia.
1 St cruise I want to talk about is the Estonian cruise. All you need is one extra day. I'm not kidding, you can do a day trip to Tallinn and have 6 to 8 hours to explore and you can get it as cheap as 6 euro.
The trip itself is 2 to 3 hours long and there's heaps to do on the boat. You can sing karaoke, listen to live music, have a nice meal at the buffet or one of the bistros. You can also relax at the bar, play pokies or do some tax free shopping.
The city of Tallinn is great, the old town is right next to the boat terminals and you can easily walk there in less than 10 minutes. Again, it's full of restaurants, shops and these great little markets. You can enjoy local food or something a bit more familiar. Old town is also full of culture and history. Taxis and Ubers are super cheap and there's few great shopping malls nearby. I recommend Ulemiste shopping mall for shopping. Taxi there takes about 20 minutes and costs around 9 euros.
I personally love Estonia, but it's a little too familiar to me, since I've spent every summer there since I was probably 6 years old. I love going there with friends who have never been there, it's like looking it through their eyes.
2 Nd cruise is Sweden cruise. Now this cruise you can actually call a cruise. Your spending 2 nights on the boat and 1 day in the city of Stockholm. I mean you can pick a cruise that doesn't allow you to go to Stockholm and makes you stay on the boat, but where's the fun in that? All the boats have wide range of cabins to choose from. You can pick a huge room with sea view and massive windows or a tiny little room with barely enough room for a bunk bed, or everything in the between. Not like your spending much time in there anyway. Since your spending a lot more time on the boat at this cruise I definitely recommend to look into all the stuff you can do in there. Also I recommend the dinner- and breakfast buffet. It's a lot cheaper than the other foods on the boat, food is always great and you stay full for the whole trip. We did these both with my Aussie mum and barely ate anything else. She got to know the traditional Finnish- and Swedish foods. On the way back I also booked the spa for us. I think it was around 10e and there was regular sauna, steam sauna, hot tubs and showers. It was the perfefct way to spend our way back after the long day in Stockholm.
Our day in Stockholm was freezing, probably around -15 degrees. My aussie mum is over 60 years old and she had no trouble walking around the city with me. So again, everything is in walking distance. If you don't want to walk there's also a lot of buses, taxis and Ubers around. The city is full of art, culture and history. There's so many museums I can't even count. Since Sweden is ruled by King and Queen, there's a lot of Royal history, which I personally find very interesting. Also unlike Estonia & Finland, Euro is not the currency of Sweden.
So all that, leaves us Russia.
I honestly don't have a lot to say about this cruise since I haven't done it yet. I really want to though! I was supposed to go do this cruise in January but the boat was on the dry dock. Now when it's operational again, I haven't found a friend to do it with me yet. Great thing about this cruise is that it's Visa free! You can spend a day in St. Petersburg without a visa. So i'm definitely going during this year. My sister has done this cruise and she did like it. Although she said all the announcements on the boat are in Russian and that was a bit confusing. Also the trip is long so you might find it difficult to do much if you don't drink. My advice is to go there in great company and it will turn out amazing.
Can't believe it took me 2 months to finish this piece. I do have an excuse again. ha.
I've been studying and training to get into school. I've also been looking for work and taking care of my nieces and nephews on regular basis. Doesn't sound like much but I've definitely had my hands full.
Oh yeah, you can also drive to Norway, Russia and Sweden from Finland.
