Heinola

My wife and I set out for the town of Heinola today. Heinola is about 30 km north of Lahti. The purpose of our trip was to buy tick repellent for our cat and see some sights that we missed in March when we last visited the town. We dropped off our daughter at a friend's house close to where we lived until January.

This is the first time in five years we encounter a situation like this on the motorway in the Lahti region. It turned out one lane was closed because of road works about three kilometers ahead.

We dropped by a chemist's in Heinola. That's a self-service checkout terminal.

One of our destinations was Harju pavillion on a ridge close to the town centre. This is an Art Noveau style building built in 1900. There is a cafeteria in it open in the summer months.

A stream between two large lakes, Ruotsalainen in the west and Konnivesi in the east runs just north of the town centre. It's part of the river Kymi, the second largest river in Finland whose main lake is the second largest lake in the country, Lake Päijänne.

The inside of the cafeteria. The lady in the picture is a random customer. I got tired of waiting for the room to be empty. There were always people forming a line.

The same room

Very close to the cafeteria there is a bridge for the railway and pedestrians.

Towards the east

Towards the east. The chimney belongs to a fluting cardboard mill.

This is not a busy railway. Heinola is the terminus of the railway between Loviisa, a port town on the coast of the Gulf of Finland and Heinola. The railway runs via Lahti, a major junction.

This is where I came from.

This is the locomotive of a very long freight train my wife and I saw arrive at Heinola. It made some noise and seemed to be headed towards the bridge but didn't. Too bad. I've would've got a nice video of it.

A view of the town centre from the bridge.

We visited that boat harbour and park on the right in March.

A view down towards the stream from between planks on the pedestrian bridge.

No train. Remained three-dimensional.

There was a beach behind the park you saw in one of the previous photos.

The water was chrystal clear and very clean. Its temperature was only 22 C despite the hot weather. That's probably because of the current. It felt a couple degrees cooler than in Lake Vesijärvi in Lahti this week. Very refreshing!

The boat harbor you saw earlier was right next to the beach. I went to the boat harbor and the park to take some pictures.

The water was totally odourless and clear. Its origin is in the southern end of Lake Päijänne, a national park and free of any major industrial plants. There is comparatively little agriculture and little in the way of nutrient run-off from fields.

The railway bridge in the background and the boat harbour in the foreground.

Finally the train departed.

That poplar is the biggest and probably the oldest in Finland. It's between one and a half and two meters in diameter. We visited this place in March and I made a post about it. If you're interested in seeing how the place looks like at the end of the winter, follow the link.

There's a summer theatre in the park.

A cafeteria at the beachfront

Entrance to the beach. There was a sign that said no alcohol was allowed at the beach. A local resident told me it was forbidden to keep out a certain large group of hobos who frequent the park. He told me the town wants to keep them away from the beach because they scare off families with children.

Our next destination was Cafe Kailas, another cafeteria. This one was on an island in the middle of the stream.

What a stunning location!

That pavillion had sliding glass doors and infrared heaters for colder weather.

The main entrance

The building was built in the 1920's. The interior had been well maintained and they even had music to from the early 20th century.

The bridge again.

The inside of the pavillion

Feel like going for a swim?

Here's the cafeteria building.

On the way back close to the park again. There was this little mystery building. What on Earth is this? Any guesses?

That's a large apple tree in the public park.

Not ripe for picking yet. Soon.