Saturday 10th July

We arrived in Helsinki at around 8.00am, and saw immediately that it was going to be a hot day! First place to call on was Mantsala, where we popped in for morning coffee with my Snapshot of Europe partner, Sari, and her family. They live in a really wonderful big house with a superb garden.
With Sari and her family, in Mantsälä, where we had morning coffee!

After an hour we carried on to Mikkeli, where we had lunch, before continuing on towards Juva, and finally our cottage, which, according to our sat-nav was still an hour away, even though it was only 10 miles to go! We had to travel down an unpaved road to get to the lake for the last few miles, but once we got there it was certainly worth the wait, as the lake, Hakojarvi, and the setting are truly amazing- one of the most perfect you could possibly imagine.
The cottage is about 20 metres from the edge of the lake, and the water as we discovered is very warm. Difficult to guage exactly, but it's certainly as warm as the water in the swimming pool, which means it's in the high 20s. With the outside temperature sitting at 26C when we arrived, not difficult to see why the water is so warm!
First view of our fantastic cottage for the 1st week!

Sandy and Olivia were immediately into the lake to test the water temperature- they weren't disappointed!

From the balcony, looking to the lake.

What a view!