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I wonder how many forts we have been to in our lifetime. Lots, Michigan, North Dakota, Florida, Texas “Remember the Alamo!” Never was there a harder one to spell. Suomenlinna on  Sveaborg. It’s a World Heritage site and an island.

An awfully complicated story

1748 Sweden

1808 Russian

1918 Finnish

We took the 15 minute ferry ride and walked around. It was the most beautiful sunny day we’ve had in Finland.

We managed to find the stop for a Rick Steve’s suggested self-guided tram tour. Quite a challenge for us. No pictures. Apparently it poured down rain while we were on the tram. We ate an early dinner at Zetor  https://www.raflaamo.fi/fi/ravintola/helsinki/zetor  a restaurant Grundela took our group to last week. On the weekend It’s jammed full of Finns doing line dancing dressed like Texans. Very quiet Monday 5pm.

Dennis can’t hear. I have a very sore throat and we both have the kind of cough I would expect to hear from a tuberculosis patient.

Sought out the neighborhood Apteeki after our early dinner. She greeted me at the door in English and asked what I needed. I got throat lozenges & strong cough syrup. Unfortunately, I managed to lose the plastic cup she gave me to measure the syrup. Took me forever to translate the Swedish/Finnish dose directions and then convert from milliliters 😄. Hope I’m close.

Our final walk was around Kalso from the river to along the shore of Kokenee Lake. My knees are functioning fine. I’m not authorized to speak for Dennis.

We left after breakfast Sunday morning. It’s a beautiful drive. We stopped at two beautiful roadside rest stops. All we expected was a privy and a picnic table.

The falls were huge I only captured part of them.

The small towns and Pend Oreille River views driving to and from Canada made the drive interesting. Our last meal of the trip was at a picnic table in Portage Park. We saw more than one fisherman making the very steep hike down to the river to fish. It was a beautiful spot and apparently the fish like it too.

We weren’t sure if our weak knees could handle another hike but we thought if the trail was relatively flat we could make it. The trail had a couple of steep short hills and we both survived.

The map showed a mountain bike park along the way. It didn’t warn us about the strange & funny sculptures.

It was a fun hike and only about 2 miles. Just the right length for our recovery.

Our motel owner suggested the hike of Mount Buchanan is beautiful in clear weather. There’s a short loop with a viewpoint, a long loop with a viewpoint, and some trail where you go to the very top.

• A Fort!
• Tour ended in Helsinki Finland
• Gudvangen & Flan
• Last Day in Oslo
• Oslo, Norway

We got up to the highest viewpoint.

The trail continued across a ridge with very few trees and lots of grass and flowers especially fireweed. It looked like it might have burned some time ago. Next the trail took us down a little, thru a Cedar and fern forest. There were a lot of plank bridges where I imagine there is water and mud in the Spring. It was dark “Looks a lot like hiking in Northern Michigan!” so I we didn’t take any pictures.

From the Cedar woods we started down a trail named “No Brakes” which is used by both mountain bikes and hikers. It was VERY STEEP! At one point Dennis thought his knees wouldn’t make it. He’d only brought one of his treking poles. We decided I should go back to the car and bring him his other pole. We had about 1/2 mile to go but it’s a long way if your knees aren’t cooperating.

Thankfully, by the time I got to Dennis his other pole he could almost see our car in the parking lot. We decided no more mountain climbing for either of us for a while. Our knees can’t take it!

You can see from Dennis's walking app we were much slower going down the last stretch of the mountain