How to plan an adventure

[fluffymark]

So, here I am in front of the computer, with my atlas beside me showing me a lovely map of Finland, Estonia and the bit of Russia around St. Petes, and am working out where all these strange places are I may have to go to. Wow. I've spent the past few hours on a major webhunt of useful sites so I'm going to splurge a few here for my own reference so I don't forget them. Just ignore me...

Hostels: http://www.bootsnall.com
Finnish Trains: http://www.vr.fi
Estonian Trains: http://www.evrekspress.ee
Ryanair: http://www.ryanair.com
Tallinn-Helsinki ferry: http://www.tallink.fi

And what have I found? Sadly the Finnish budget airline FlyingFinn I was originally planning on traveling with closed their Stansted-Helsinki route about 3 weeks ago. Grrrr. This was nearly a catastrophic deathblow for the whole adventure. Fortunately Ryanair offer a cheaper if slightly bizarre alternative: Tampere. Seems flights there are £9.99 and it's a 90 minute train ride from there to Helsinki. Yay. Only minus is theres only one flight a day and arrival time into Helsinki is very late evening. But thats the only way there so thats what it'll have to be. Which fails miserably to connect with the night train to St. Petes, although it seems that a bad idea anyway as I'd arrive in St Petes at 1:30AM if the connection was do-able, which would be bad. So It'll be a night in Helsinki, and then the early morning train out to St Petes arriving early afternoon, unless theres a convenient overnight coach I've not yet spotted. Hostels in st Petes are at manageable prices (at least compared to Helsinki). This is good as I may be paying for two. The Estonian leg of the journey seems better timed, theres nice overnight trains to Tallinn, and I can spend a night there, and regular and fast ferries between there and Helsinki. Finding cheap accomodation in Helsinki is not proving to be easy, but I'm sure it exists somewhere. But overall it looks very affordable adventure. Just the hassle of sorting out the Russian visa can stop me now...

Oh look, I'm off to Bruges on Thursday. Yaaaaaaaaaay! :)

Comments

Uh-oh...

[alektoeumenides.livejournal.com]

What DAY would you arrive in Petes? If it's Saturday afternoon then it's probably best for me to turn up on Sunday morning...instead of wasting a whole morning (and I've done it before, it's not fun).

If that's what's happening, let me know.

Can't Buzz.com provide a cheap flight to Helsinki?

I might be able to pay for a night in petersburg...you pay upfront, I'll owe you.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I was very tempted to fly to Poland last night...

Gina

[bluesbell.livejournal.com]

Tampere is the goth capital of Finland, you know :)

I'll try to look up cheap accommodation in Helsinki for you. If you need help with anything, I'm here!

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Oh and you know snowgrouse is in Finland, don't you?
Have you encountered her much on my Friends List?

Gina

[caro7.livejournal.com]

That's a pretty identical itinerary to what we'll be doing in summer, tho' missing out St P as have been there already. Haven't done much research yet (still planning for Easter's Venice-Slovenia-Croatia-Budapest jaunt!) but checked out Eurohostel in Helsinki and they look/sound good - one advantage being that they're near the port if I remember rightly, so you can just flop off the ferry.

Thanks so much for doing a dummy run for us ;-)

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

Hiya, pinkdormouse pointed me out to you... Gorgeous background on your lj, btw, adore Mucha.

Anyhow, I recommend staying overnight in Tampere or elsewhere as it would be way cheaper than Helsinki. I live in Lahti, which is about half-way between the two (about 100 km north of Helsinki). There's just no way of getting cheap accommodation in Helsinki short of staying over at friends:P. Finnish hotel prices are ridiculous and we don't really have a b&b culture here.

I heartily recommend Tampere--it's a lovely town full of culture and much warmer and relaxed than Helsinki. Dunno about it being a Goth capital, but I sure as hell prefer Tampere goths to Helsinki ones (the latter seem to be rather up their own arses). *cough*.

Was the VR website helpful? I *think* you can actually take the straight train to St. Peters from here in Lahti without going via Helsinki, if I'm not completely mistaken. *checks train timetable booklet* yup, 'tis true! If you go to Helsinki from Tampere you'll end up doing another visit up here anyway before the train turns east towards Russia. I'd recommend getting off at Riihimäki or Lahti and then hopping on the St. Peters train if you want to avoid unnecessary travel to Helsinki.

Anyway, just random things that popped to my head:). I'll be here if you need more help...