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  latest news  
  29.04.06
For wedding related questions and comments, see how & whom to contact best		  
  23.07.06
Finally, we posted our story. Check it out! 		 
  28.08.06
Now one month later and happily married - we meanwhile got tons of pictures - we now published a selection here. 		 
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Before being able to travel in Finland, you need to come here. this is in most cases not really difficult, however always proves to be a bit more tricky than for example mainland Europe. It's because we are so far off, both north and east and for the vast majority of you "behind" the baltic sea. Coming here works out fine in various ways, flying, by car+ferry or train+ferry.

 
You should fly to Finland if you either come from really far away - i.e. outside Europe - or not have much time (but some €€€) at hand. Otherwise the trip up here over Denmark, Sweden and the Baltic Sea is way too beautiful to be missed. Now, if you fly, you get flights from pretty much everywhere to Helsinki (HEL). However with Ryanair, e.g. from Frankfurt Hahn or London Stansted, you end up in Tampere (TMP), which is about 170km north of Helsinki. This is actually quite alright, too, since Nastola the wedding location is about 100km north-north-east of Helsinki. Raw flight times to Helsinki are 2,5 hours from Frankfurt and 3,5 hours from London. Add to that getting to the airport, time to wait around there and then 2,5 hours on the Finnish end until arriving in Nastola, you end up with something around 9 to 10 hours. Good sites to look for deals if your miles don't really cover it right now are:

expedia, travelocity, ebookers, orbitz, opodo are the usual websites for flight reservations. Some do rental car deals, too and that can be quite a good package.

Budget airlines flying to Finland are AirBerlin, Blue1, Germanwings, Air Baltic, Ryanair, Malev, Sterling and SN Brussels Airlines. It's a bit tedious but it's worth checking the offers they have from various destinations.

To get from the airport to Nastola, you can rent a car, take the train or the bus. More infos on that on our directions page
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When traveling to Finland by car or train from Central Europe and especially Germany for that matter, the journey on land is normally nicely paused by a couple of ferry passages, since the typical and actually fastest route leads you over Denmark and Sweden. Below are a couple of route options (not mece!) and some thoughts on those.
Route1: GER, Puttgarden - DEN, Rödby; DEN, Helsingör - SWE, Helsingborg; SWE, Stockholm - FIN, Helsinki or Turku
The three ferry rides are a welcome break from sitting behind the wheel. The first two connections are quite short, an hour from Puttgarden to Rödby and about 25 minutes from Helsingör to Helsingborg both with Scandlines ferries. Those two connections go all day long every half an hour or so. Alternatively to the ferry from DEN - SWE, you can take the Öresund bridge. It might save some time, it costs the same, but the real reason is actually the view from the bridge, it's gorgeous! The third ferry ride takes longer, either 10 hours to Turku going twice a day or 15 hours to Helsinki with one departure per day. Both Viking Line and Silja Line are quite an experience for being ferries and not cruise ships. This route has from Hamburg around 1000/1100km (Helsinki/Turku) on the road in addition to the times on the ferries.

Route2: travel along mainland Denmark; DEN, Grenaa - SWE, Varberg; SWE, Stockholm - FIN, Helsinki or Turku
This one is just a variation of the previous route and has only two but the first being a slightly longer ferry connection (4 hours) than the two short ones in route 1. Stena Line is the best bet to look at here, they also sell you combi tickets to Finland. This route has from Hamburg around 950/1050km (Helsinki/Turku) on the road in addition to the times on the ferries.

Route3: GER, Rostock - FIN, Hanko
For the lazy ones, just roll on the ferry and 22 hours later you are in Finland. It's not cheap from what I heard, but perhaps worth checking it out, Superfast ferries. This route has from Hamburg around 400km on the road in addition to the times on the ferry.

Regarding how to figure out the best deal and what combination to take it makes sense to get in touch with probably the best Finnish travel agency in Germany, LOMA-Reisen. They can put something together if you don't want to figure it out all by yourself. In addition ask them for sights along your way. There are tons of those along the E4 (European Highway 4). Regarding how to get from one of the harbour cities to Nastola, the wedding location see the directions page.

We all know the trade-off, flexibility versus comfort - car versus train. If you use your own car, you know gas prices around here, compared to Germany (~1,34EUR/liter for 95 Octan), it's slightly cheaper in Sweden (~10,48SEK = 1,12EUR/liter) and in Finland it's about the same level than in GER. But for the summer higher prices are predicted, up to 1,50EUR/liter (which would be around $7.20/gallon for our friends from the US). So if you are not from around here, you need to take this into consideration when renting a car. Decent priced rental car companies are Europcar or Sixt, or do it with your flight booking. Sights along the route and in general are mentioned on the "traveling in Finland" page.

The other option would be to take the train, stretch your legs and get some cross-cultural experience. The national railway companies of Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Finland have decent booking systems with cross-border connections, so check 'em out. You want to have Lahti as destiantion, that's as close as you can get by train. How to go on from there is found on the directions page.In case you have a really tricky train question and need a hint or so, contact Martin, he's a good friend of mine and a walking train encyclopedia, he's best with the German Bahn.

And one last remark, Sweden is still using SEK (Swedish Crowns), go to the currency converter to get a feel for what the SEK amounts mean in EUR or USD.
 
 
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