My cousin Ryan got married in June to a beautiful Finnish girl, Liisa. They had the wedding near Liisa's hometown of Savonlinna, Finland and I was lucky enough to be invited to the wedding! It was a remarkably easy trip for me, especially compared with the rest of our family, who came from the US and many of Ryan and Liisa's friends who travelled from locations all over the world.
Savonlinna is north of Helsinki in a really beautiful part of Finland where there are tons of lakes. We were there only a week before Midsummers Eve, which is the longest day of the year. It was never completely dark at night - this is a picture out of our hotel room at about midnight. This was as dark as it ever was! The sun was fully up by 3am, but our hotel room had nice dark curtains. Yes, we were up at 3am - more on that later...
Savonlinna is well known in Finland for being the home of this Olavinlinna Castle, where the Savonlinna Opera Festival takes place every summer. It started a week after we left, so we were still able to tour the castle. Liisa arranged an English speaking guide for the large group from the wedding party. Over the centuries the Castle was a strategic fortification between Sweden, Finland and Russia.
This was the day after the wedding - we had a beautiful sunny day. I know that my finger is in the picture - apparently I was so excited to see sunshine that I neglected to take a nice picture without my finger.
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