My midsummer plans were to drive to the opposite side of the country to see some friends, grill food and heat the sauna. But as Finland is such a large place, the drive would take up to eight hours. I decided to chop it up in shorter sections. I took two colleagues with me, who were going in the same directions, called one of my closest friends and asked for a bed.
When I arrived in my friend’s hometown, it was early evening. She had cooked us dinner and bought some wine, I had bought her wine as a thanks for accomondating me. We now had plenty of wine, set the table on the balcony facing the evening sun and started making plans.
I had heard of a former children’s adventure park located outside the city. It wasn’t that far away, but a bit too far to walk there, and it was clear that neither of us would drive that night. I needed a bike, so I asked for one in my Instagram stories.
15 minutes later I had a bike. The evening was as beautiful as ever, with the evening sun colouring the sky golden and rain clouds coming from the southwest making it all even more dramatic. We biked outside the town, stopped at benches and sipped wine. We were in great spirits, and then we were there.
The place was founded in the late 1990’s and closed down in 2015. It included a main building with an activity park in it, an outside activity park and a village for figures from fairytales. A gym now occupies the main building, but everything else has been neglected since.
A bike path runs through the park, and there is a rather innovative underpass underneath it. The fairytale village is behind us, the activity park ahead.
The cave was pretty scary and narrow. Luckily it was also short, as I wouldn’t perhaps have entered it otherwise. If you’ve read this blog previously, you know that I usually don’t photograph for example in basements.
There were a lot of events in the park during its heyday. Some of them were princess and pirate themed. So of course the park needed a pirate ship.
The local Jack Sparrow better be careful, as the bridge doesn’t look that sound anymore.
Oh, never mind, Jack. Your ship is a total write-off.
Although everything was overgrown, it was easy to see, that the place had been really nice, when it was taken care of.
The houses of the fairytale figure village had also suffered a lot of vandalism. They were all locked, when we came around.
The signs warn of camera surveillance. According to newspaper reports, an energy and water company owns the area.
This used to be a kiosk. One of the specialities of the park was, that the buildings were actually made of real stone.
Even this small pavilion has seen better days.
To be continued.