Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Olavinlinna Savonlinnassa | The Olav Castle in Savonlinna

This past weekend, luckily, I was able to travel to east Finland to see a  very old castle.  The castle was located in Savonlinna, and was built way back in 1475.



Castle entrance
A lot older than my home country!  It was constructed by the Swedes (The land now known as Finland belonged to the Swedish kingdom then.) in attempt to protect the crowns expanding eastern border.
 Today, the Finnish have tried to preserve this treasure.  They use it as a sort of natural museum and as the host of their annual opera festival in July.  It was extremely neat to walk in something built around the type Columbus discovered the Americas.
Stone hallway
Old, ornate seal hanging in castle
View from fortress window
Model of how big the castle actually is

I was also able to try one of the foods local to the area called lörtsy.  Basically, it is a fried dough containing either minced meat (savory) or apples (sweet).  Unlike the picture, the apple one was tossed in sugar.  My and boyfriend tried both.

Minced meat lörtsy

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