An adventure with my great aunt

It was early Morning near the statue of President Mannerheim in Helsinki,

when I was waiting for a bus with fifty or so

elderly people, mainly ladies. I had a funny feeling that they were looking at me very suspiciously so I tried to keep a bit of a distance to them and strolled around the block a couple of times to try and kill time. The bus arrived, everyone got in, and so did I. At the very last moment my great aunt arrived. I was relieved. Then the bus took off and we were heading for a days worth of adventures in Kemiönsaari in the South West of Finland.

I had gotten to know my great aunt better when I had recently moved to the Helsinki area. She told me that she loved travelling, but didn't really have a travel companion at the moment. I love travelling too, so we decided we might do a day trip somewhere. A little while later she called me and said she had seen an advertisement in the paper for a bus tour to the Island of Seili. We wanted to go there (It is an island at sea that used to house the mentally ill.) That bus trip unortunately was already sold out so we settled on another one to Kemiönsaari.

At first we drove to a harbour. There was plenty of time to talk on the bus, and we talked about life, our family history and other things, that were more deep that I would usually talk about to a relative. But she is a very deep thinking woman, in any case, which makes her interesting company. In the harbur we got on a small boat, on which we travelled for almost an hour to Kemiönsaari. The sea and the sound of the engine made my great aunt slightly sleepy. I enjoyed watching the waves and the small rocks in the distance.

Upon arrival to Kemiönsaari we had lunch at a restaurant in the harbour. There was a delicious buffet, that made me very happy. Then the bus continued on to Kemiönsaari to the former home of a great finnish art patron Amos Andersson, which was now turned into a museum. The house was an old fascinating manor house called Söderlångvik, filled with art. The ground floor was focused on art, and it had the more formal rooms, including a room, where the Finnish president had stayed. The upper floor was a more personal and cosy home, filled with interesting little pieces of art and books. There was even a room for Mr. Andersson's lady friend and a very good tour guide painted us quite a personal picture of Mr. Andersson. 

 

This delicate interior is in the room belonging to Amos Andersson's lady friend

 The grounds of the manor house are planted with lots of apple trees

From the museum we went back to the bus and drove around to the area of Taalintehdas, an old ironworks factory town. Our guide amused us with stories about the buildings. We then drove to an old stone church. At every location it was interesting to see and hear how much Amos Andersson had impacted the town. For example he had paid for the glass window paintings of the Church and had had himself painted as one of the figures. 

I guess you could say that both Amos Andersson and I took "selfies" in Kemiönsaari, I didn't have mine stuck to a Church window though.

We then drove back to Helsinki, which was good, because every one was exhausted after a long day of sight seeing. All in all it was a nice trip and sparked an interest to revisit some of the places again in the future. I also definetely want to visit the Island of Seili at some point because of it's interesting history. Travelling with my great aunt proved to be an interesting and pleasant experience.

Our tour guides made us laugh

Here is my opinion of the pluses and minuses of an organised bus tour such as this

+ You get to see a lot of interesting places

+ If you go with a friend you will have plenty of time to talk about life and other matters on the bus

+ A local tour guide in the bus can give you great insight into the local stories

+ You can access destinations outside of the most typical tourist routes

- You have limited time to explore the destinations yourself

- There is a sense of being hurried

- When going on a tour with mostly elderly people it is very likely that the tour will include only minimal walking or self exploring.

View from the bus window

Have you been on a bus tour? How was it? Let me know about your experiences and thoughts in the comments.