The first day was spent simply driving. We had decided to drive straight to Lapland fairly quickly; the distance from Southern Finland to Rovaniemi is about 850 kilometers, so we pushed through with quick stops to make it there in one day.
Accommodation in Rovaniemi
We arrived late at night, and we had booked Motelli Rovaniemi for our accommodation. All the individual cottages here were booked, so we took a room in a shared cottage, where we had our own lockable room, but the kitchen and bathroom were shared. The kitchen was equipped with basics, so we could easily make breakfast in the morning. We slept in quite late due to our late arrival, so by the time we woke up, the other guests had already left, and we could enjoy breakfast in peace.
Santa Claus Village Rovaniemi in Summer
After breakfast, we continued our journey towards Santa Claus Village. Santa Claus Village is undoubtedly Rovaniemi’s most famous attraction and is open all year round, although one might imagine it only being open in winter.
It was only about 18 km from Motelli Rovaniemi to Santa Claus Village, so we arrived quite quickly. There is a large parking lot on the site, which is probably full during winter, but in August, it was nearly empty. There weren’t many cars besides ours, so we practically had the whole place to ourselves.
Santa Claus Village has a central square around which the whole complex is built. Christmas carols play in the background, and elves roam from shop to shop, so you can’t escape the Christmas atmosphere. At the central square, you can cross the Arctic Circle, marked clearly on the ground. This is the only place where you can visually cross the Arctic Circle like this.
Of course, in Santa Claus Village, you can also meet Santa Claus and send mail from Santa Claus’s Post Office. When sending a Christmas card, you can decide whether it should be delivered right away or only at Christmas, which was a fun addition. We also sent our greetings, as it’s not every day you get to visit Santa Claus’s Post Office, but we chose to have the cards delivered right away, not just at Christmas. The village has several shops where you can buy various souvenirs, and of course, there are restaurants when hunger strikes.
You can also see reindeer in the area, both in summer and winter, but during our visit, they seemed to be on summer vacation or lunch break, so we didn’t see any.
There are several impressive buildings in the area, and we can only imagine how magical it would be here in winter. We definitely have to come back on our next skiing trip and see what the place looks like in winter!
Pyhรค-Luosto National Park – Camping Site
From Santa Claus Village, we headed towards Pyhรค-Luosto National Park, which was about 150 kilometers away to the north. We had chosen Camping Pyhรคjรคrvi (Lomakeskus Lapin Orava) as our accommodation option, so we went there first to see what the place was like. The place seemed nice; the camping site was right by the lake, so we booked ourselves in there. We were allowed to drive the car to the edge of the lake and pitch our tent there. A big plus was that we could park the car next to the tent.
There was no electricity at the tent sites, but this didn’t bother us. There were shared showers and toilets, as well as a kitchen. These facilities weren’t the newest, but they served their purpose. The beautiful lake view and the reindeer wandering freely in the yard were a really big plus for this camping site.
There was still daylight left, and even in August, there is plenty of daylight, so from here, we headed towards the Pyhรค-Luosto Visitor Centre, Luontokeskus Naava.
We had planned to hike to Noitatunturi mountain, so we sought tips and route directions from the visitor center. More on hiking to Noitatunturi and route directions in the next post โ
