This was a part of the Scandinavian trip we were probably looking forward to most as we had our own cabin in the middle of nowhere! We loved our time at the cabin. It was right on the lake and totally private. There was a Finnish couple living on a tiny island opposite us, he was really keen to socialise, he even unexpectedly brought us a whole heap of his home smoked fish wrapped up in newspaper - so sweet. But we're both reading the girl with the dragon tatoo a...

About 4 hours drive north east of Helsinki is a little town called Savonlinna. It is very much a summer town and the main reason we came here was to enjoy some of the annual opera festival which is quite big around these parts. We had a bit of a swim in the lakes too. So many lakes up here and apparently in winter you can drive between the islands when the lakes have frozen over. Hard to imagine when we're lying on the grassy banks watching all of the Finnish fam...

We weren't too sure what to expect from Helsinki but we have thoroughly enjoyed our time here. We're staying about 20 mins out of town and taking the tram in each day which has reminded us of Melbourne. The weather has been perfect so we took a ferry to Samounnlina fortress as well as an open air museum on a beautiful green island, with red squirrels running up to us. The city itself is reasonably compact compared to the likes of Moscow so we have been doing a lo...

It's difficult to not try and compare St. Petersburg with Moscow but that would be unfair as they are both fantastic cities and both very different. We seemed to have timed our trip to Russia during record high temperatures and you can tell the cities are not built for this heat. This hasn't stopped us getting out and about to see the sights. We visited a huge palace in Pawlowsk, about an hour outside of St. Petersburg. Unfortunately the personal guide we were fi...

So the circus wasn't quite what we were expecting. Lots of animals doing things animals don't usually do. We left at half time - after the huge seals were climbing ladders (weird). There were photo opportunities before the circus started with leopards and bears, tigers with no teeth and bears that were so muzzled they couldn't even eat what their ring leaders were giving then to keep them happy. Depressing, Mr Putin should know better. Moscow has been so intere...