Weekend Travelling - Tampere

I had another three-day weekend and the weather was nice, so I decided to go travelling again while it's still possible. With Turku done it was time for the next big city...Tampere!

Helsinki to Tampere

I've wanted to go to Tampere for a while as I've heard good things and in fact I did go there a few weeks back but only to visit the airport, so I saw very little of the city. Now it was time to explore.

Old City Hall in Central Square

The plan was that I'd leave early on Friday to give me the whole day there, stay the night and spend most of Saturday there too before moving on to my next destination. Unfortunately, this didn't happen as I got very drunk on Thursday and passed out in my room, only to wake up on Friday afternoon. I headed for the train as quickly as I could and arrived in Tampere at about 4pm.

Best Lenin Museum EVER!

This gave me enough time to see the Lenin museum, which is rather unique. It claims to be the only museum dedicated to Lenin in the world. It also seems to be run by hardline Communists. Everything about the museum seemed heavily biased and made excuses for many of the evils perpetrated by the Soviet Union. Of course, this made it all the more interesting. I've never visited a communist hall of propaganda before!

Industrial Tampere at night

I was able to see much of the city in the evening, visting the olympic stadium and seeing the remaining industry lit atmospherically in the moonlight. Tampere is known as 'the Manchester of Finland', which is to say there are lots of old cotton mills and factories in the city with chimneys and smokestacks dominating the skyline. It gives the city a strange character, to me at times it seemed just like being back in England.

Aleksanterin kirkko

In the morning I headed out early, passing the charming Alexander Church on the way. I headed straight for Pyynikki ridge, which rises above the city and has an observation tower. From the tower you can see for miles around, which is to say you can see a lot of trees and lakes.

The view from Pyynikki observation tower

Afterwards I went to the Finlayson Centre, a large arts and entertainment complex inside the converted Finlayson Mill, which is famous for being the first in Finland and was opened by a Scotsman (and explains the seemingly-British look of the city).

The view toward the Finlayson Centre and the Tampere rapids

Inside the centre I visited the Media Museum, which I found particularly interesting as I studied media at college and the Spy Museum which was good fun as it doesn't take itself too seriously. Afterwards I headed straight to the station and got the train to Jyvaskyla, my next destination. I'll explain why I went there and what I did in my next update!

For now, there are lots more photos on the second page of my Finland Gallery.