Where we'll stay- more pictures

A big thank you to the class teacher in Finland, Jyrki, who visited our accommodation last weekend, to take some pictures so that you can see a bit more of where we'll be staying. As you can see, the accommodation looks lovely, and we looked at these pictures this morning in class. There's a lot of snow there, around 60cms at present!


Looking at our accommodation from the outside- taken last week- and there's lots of snow!


Another picture of outside.


Inside; this is the dining area, with TV, CD player, and piano.


This is one of the bedrooms.


Another bedroom.


This is close to the accommodation, and is a large hut, where you can meet for barbeques.

Looking at the hut from the outside.

How thick will the ice be?

Some of the P7s have been asking me how thick the ice will be when we are in Varkaus. If you look at this Finnish site you will see that detailed measurements are made across the country on the 10th, 20th and 30th of each month during winter.

Jyrki, the class teacher in Finland, has told me that it is generally accepted that it's safe to open a lake for cars to drive on the ice after the ice thickness has exceeded 15cm. Jyrki has measured the ice on Lake Saimaa, at the bottom of his garden, and found that it is currently over 40cm thick! The average thickness in the whole area is currently between 30-40cm.

Unless there is a major thaw, it seems it will be pretty safe to walk on the ice!

P7 blog for trip to Finland...

Hello everyone!
It's not long now until the P7 class from Yester head off for their annual outdoor week, this year going all the way from here in Scotland, almost to the Russian border, to eastern Finland, where we will stay in Varkaus, to allow us to visit our link school in the nearby village of Kuvansi.

No doubt everyone is keen to see exactly where we'll be staying- if you look below you'll see our accommodation, close to Varkaus, via Google's street view mapping. It's quite good fun to click on the image, open it up and travel from here back up to the main road and towards the town itself, which is around 4km away. Looking behind the accommodation, you can see part of Lake Saimaa, which is actually the biggest lake in Finland. It's a labyrinth of many interconnecting areas of waters, stretching over a large part of the east of the country.

View Larger Map

The excellent tourist information site, VisitFinland, gives more details:
"Lake Saimaa, the fourth largest lake in Europe, is situated in Eastern Finland between the Cities of Lappeenranta and Joensuu and is a diverse chain of waters almost 200 km long. For anglers, the extensive water body and its thousands of islands and islets represent an unlimited number of fishing grounds.

Lake Saimaa consists of several major water areas, joined up by sounds and narrow passages. These areas are also known as lakes named in their own right, even if their water level is the same. The key parts of Lake Saimaa are Lakes Suur-Saimaa, Pihlajavesi, Haukivesi, Puruvesi, Orivesi and Pyhäselkä."

If you are keen to see a bit more of the area around Varkaus, then you might like to watch the following video, entitled, Charms of Saimaa, which shows the area quite nicely. About two thirds of the way through, you'll see Olavinlinna Castle, where we plan to visit while we are there.

There are many videos on YouTube about Finland, which have been uploaded by VisitFinland. The one below is worth watching, and leads to many of the others.