Nilsiä and Opera Cava

On Sunday July 10, I went for a bike ride to Nilsiä, about 10km from Tahkovuori. It's a sleepy town, and the only things open on Sunday morning were the local convenience store and a florist. And church, of course. I saw a number of well-dressed types frequenting the florist...
After another bout of Finnish dining at the hotel, I joined the orchestra (well, only half of it) on a bus to the Opera Cava festival site. The site is an old quarry:

I noticed that the quarry's acoustics weren't great -- everything is somewhat dead. Eric explained that the performance was amplified...I had thought the mikes on stage were just for recording purposes.
The orchestra played an all-Sibelius concert, including a wonderful performance of the Violin Concerto by a pretty impressive 18-year-old local talent, and the sprawling Kullervo Symphony, in which a young Sibelius seems to bite off more than he can chew, but was also instrumental (is that a pun?) in fanning the flames of Finnish nationalism.
Encores were well-done: Finlandia (the version with male choir), and Valse Triste, both favorites of probably not just me.

The morning after the concert, the orchestra bus took off for Tampere with me and Eric aboard. It stopped at a rest area in Jämsä for lunch, where Eric and I got off.