Traveling to Finland

So this blogpost is about my journey from Linz to Finland. Although Finland is in the EU it is very isolated in terms of transportation. The only real viable alternatives to go to Finland are either by ship, which is very slow, or by plane.

While reading this article you might be wondering why I show every little detail, like the trams some of you are using every day, but I want to make those journeys also acessible to people who might not be able to do them for whatever reason and I want the reader to be able to enjoy the journey from start to Finland. Also it might inspire you to think a bit more about the things that are around you every day. And last but not least I will also show those small things at my travel destinations and then you will be able to compare the small differences in the daily habits. In todays modern world there are hardly any big differences between the countries. You have electronic stores here and there, shopping malls, the big brands, pretty much everything is the same in most countries, so it is really the small things that make a difference.

One more thing. I have to apologize for the mediocre quality of some of the pictures, but sometimes I was a bit in a hurry and couldn’t always get a perfect shot and after all a bad image is better than no image. Ask your local UFO spotters for more info on that topic 😜.

The Plan

I decided for going by plane. Linz itself has only a very small airport and it is far outside of the town and hard to reach by public transport. This is why I decided to fly from Vienna. Since the new main station in Vienna was opened, many trains go directly to the Vienna International Airport.

As flight carrier I chose AirBaltic since it was the cheapest. A single ticket cost about 150 Euros in the economy plus category, which allowed me to take a suitcase with me. Not an entirely stupid decision when going to a foreign country for 5 months.

AirBaltic is a Latvian airline which has it’s hub in Riga and operates a textbook hub and spoke system using small planes. As far as I know their fleet consists mostly of Airbus A220 and Bombardier Dash 8.

The Actual Journey

On the day of the journey I had to get up super early. My train was scheduled to depart at 06:10am and I still had to walk to the tram and ride the tram for a couple of stations.

So I boarded the train to Vienna at 06:10. Of course I made a reservation beforehand. After all it only costs 1 Euro and saves a lot of trouble. Since it was very early in the morning a waitress walked through the train and took orders for coffee, however although I placed an order I never received my coffee 😢 (I didn’t pay anything upfront).

After a nice relaxed ride with the train I arrived at the underground station at VIA. After having some trouble finding the correct elevator I finally managed to get out. To my total surprise the station and airport are not directly connected, but you have to go outside first. This is what confused me initially.

I still had time so after checking in my suitcase I went to grab some classic vienniese breakfast. Croissant and coffee.

Then I made my way to the plane. On my way there I was a bit surprised that there were still planes with AirBerlin livery waiting at apron positions.

I might have to add at this point that I am by no means a frequent flyer. In fact this was only the 7th (and 8th) time I boarded a plane in my lifetime. However the A220 was then very nice. The A220 was initially developed by Bombardier as a new short range jet under the C-Series brand, but in 2018 it was taken over by Airbus for several reasons and rebranded to A220 (if you want more info: here). So the plane I flew on was less than 2 years old.

The flight was pretty uneventful. As I knew I would have to wait for several hours in Riga I booked lunch for the flight to Riga and I was surprised by the high quality. The price was ok for the amount. It wasn’t too much, but it was enough that I could survive the rest of the day without eating.

After about 2 hours of flight I reached the capital of Latvia, Riga.

Riga

During the approach the flatness of the country and the amount of forest was very obvious. Another thing that immidiately came to my eye was the number of AirBaltic planes. As AirBaltic operates out of Latvia, Riga is their main hub. Almost all AirBaltic flights start or end in Riga. That way AirBaltic can serve a lot of different routes. The same was true for my journey. I departed in Vienna in the morning, arrived at Riga at noon and in the afternoon I continued to Helsinki.

Riga itself has a very modern airport. It is built using lots of wood elements. I had to walk over to the next area where my flight to Helsinki would depart.

It seems that Riga is also kind of a NATO operations base. At least I saw a Hercules of the Canadian Air Force as well as an unmarked Osprey. I think the Osprey is pretty impressive if you see one taking of in real life.

After another 2 hours of waiting I could finally board my plane to Helsinki.

Unfortunately there was a thick layer of clouds above the Baltic Sea, so the first things I saw in Finland were snow, small cottages and forest.

Helsinki

At about 4pm the plane arrived in Helsinki Vantaa Airport right on schedule. At this point it had already gotten dark again. The day was additionally shortened by the fact that Finland is an hour ahead of Austria, which means that by travelling I lost an hour.

After arrival I had to get my checked-in luggage. Once I had left the security area the first thing to do was a visit to the toilet. And that is were I encountered the first cultural differences. The locks in finnish toilets stalls open and close exactly opposite to what you are used to in central Europe. And this was not just the case at the airport, but basically anywhere in Finland. However for obvious reasons I chose to not include pictures or videos about that topic here.

After having taken care of the basic needs I looked for the train station. From my research I knew that there was a direct train connection at the airport, but the airport was big and so finding the train station was not easy the first time. After I had found it though I was impressed by the cool architecture. If you are a foreigner the ticket system of Helsinki might be confusing (not anymore since they changed to a better System in April 2019), but I managed to buy a single ticket.

The trains used for local transport in Helsinki are Stadler Flirt trains, manufactured in Switzerland. Basically similar trains are also used in Austria (at Berchtesgadnerland Bahn, Salzburg), however the finnish trains have some adaptions for wider gauge and cold temperatures. I will cover those in another post.

One more thing that might be confusing to you is that the trains at the airport go to Helsinki in both directions. The railway line is a loop and was opened in July 2015. So it is important to get on the train at the correct side of the platform. Otherwise you will end up at the other end of the town. The trains are marked with letters and the lines I and P go to the airport.

After a short train ride to the Pukinmäki station I switched to the bus for a couple of stations. When I left the bus it was basically the first time I really saw Finland.

I was greeted by a snow covered road with a small stripe that was cleared of snow. At first I assumed there was some kind of heating installed to save cost on cleaning the streets of snow, but after a while I realized that it might not be on purpose, but rather it was probably just a leaking district heating line.

Since the dorm’s reception already closed at 3:30pm and my plane did not arrive until 4pm I had to take an AirBnB for the night. This was my first experience with AirBnB and so I had some trouble finding the house at first. Once I found it it was a typical finnish wooden house. However my room was only secured with a sliding door made from wood and thin plastic sheets and since I had everything with me, camera, laptop and so on, I did not want to leave. Besides that I was also very tired and I figured I would rather go to bed early and then I can eat the next day once I checked in at the dorm.

Conclusion

So this was the story of my journey to Finland. Stay tuned for more posts as I will continue the series about my exchange semester in Finland.