Visiting Kuopio

Another train ride working our way north. This time the stop was Kuopio.

We had a longer walk, about 10 minutes, to our hotel. The walk was made longer after I slipped in the ice. But with my pants torn at the knee, I looked very cool! (cold?) Torn pants are the look of some of the young people.

We asked at the desk where to go and where the locals eat. The two people recommended that we walk to the lake and then marked on the map where two restaurants were. They said that the hotel also had 2 good restaurants.

The walk by the lake was beautiful but funny to see boats frozen in place for the winter. We walked until we were way too hungry. Winds were also picking up making it really cold.

On the way to the restaurant area, we were passing the cathedral. We decided to step inside and blow our dripping noses. We wanted to warm up a bit too. http://www.spottinghistory.com/view/215/kuopio-cathedral/

We stepped inside the cathedral and in the choir loft, above the door, we heard music, “Little Drummer Boy”. It became apparent that it was a rehearsal so we thought we’d sit down, warm up and hear the music. Within minutes people started streaming in and within 10 minutes the whole place was packed.

The Cathedral just minutes before people started streaming in

The choir loft just above the exit door

I went to the rear and picked up a brochure but, of course, we couldn’t read it as it was all in Finnish. There were numbers 1-24 listed on the front page so we thought that maybe it was about programs every night until Christmas. A lady sat down next to me and started to talk but I had to tell her that I did not speak Finnish. Alas.

The program started and people sang along, the lady next to me pointed to the song they were singing. We did not recognize most of the songs except for “Little Drummer Boy”, “Away In a Manger” and “Beautiful Savior”. Some of the songs were performed by a men’s chorus in the choir loft, this included the “Little Drummer Boy”. Otherwise, the audience joined in accompanied by the organ. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWRYdZEdvDg

We walked to the center square but winds were blowing and the restaurants did not have

anything we wanted to eat. We decided to walk back to the hotel for dinner and sauna.