Ruissalo

The first “big” trip that I’ve made was to “Ruissalo”. The island is located in the south-west of Turku and about 45 minutes by bike or 30 minutes by bus.

Shortly after I arrived in Finnland, I was wondering where I could see the Baltic Sea. As there are lots of little islands on the shore in front of Turku, you can’t really see “the open sea” as I would have imagined. But still - I was very keen on going to the waterside! So after my very first class at Novia I grabbed my friend and we rode our bikes to the harbor, assuming that we would get to the shore! Well, it wasn’t that easy! To be precise it took us 45 minutes to get there (approximately 16km).

The area around the harbor is filled with loads and loads of company trans shipment centers. A lot of them were German companies like DB Schenker, DHL, Würth, … . It was funny to see them all here! I guess this means “global”!

After wandering around with no clue where to go, we met a nice elderly lady who was on her way to the Ruissalo Spa. She invited us to ride along with her and warned us that she’s not that fast on her bike.

Well guess what! It was pretty hard to keep up with her pace! I have to admit that I didn’t wear the right clothes and also the landscape was too nice to just dash through it. After we had left the harbor zone, it began to look a lot like countryside! There are few houses and Wikipedia told me that there are only approx. 126 inhabitants. There is a huge golf course though which is located right next to the bike path. Besides this the bike path leads you along fields and meadow. The bike paths look more like avenues with birch trees on the sides. I can imagine that it’s nice to go on a bike ride here even when it’s hot!

When we finally arrived at the beach the view was marvelous! I wasn’t able to catch it with my camera :/ We left our bikes at the curbs and walked all the way down to the beach. The view was the best reward that we could have expected.
The sun was shining, the water was okayish and we forgot our bikinies :/



There is a small beach between the rocks with a barbecue place, changing rooms and there is a huge deck with a seating area. The beach - and actually the entire island was very clean. We didn't find any plastic bags or zigarett stubs on the ground. Also there are a lot of stones but it's no problem to walk because the sand prevails the stones. I would have never imagined that it would be that warm in Finland in September!!

Looking back, it didn’t feel like 16 kilometers! And it was worth riding the bike there in my horrible jeans a fleecejacket and a bag full of books ;)

Click here if you want to check out our bike tour.

What a fun day! For more adventures stay tuned.

Raisa