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.

Tahkovuori

I departed Tampere on the morning of Saturday, July 9, on a Finnish Rail train bound for Kuopio, a small city in the heart of Finland's lake district. Since this was a Saturday, and longer-range bus service appeared to be non-existent then, I was forced to take a taxi 50km to Tahkovuori, a ski resort outside the sleepy little vacation town of Nilsiä, which is here. I should have rented a car instead, given the cost (80 euro). This would have bought me and Eric more flexibility later on. This is where Eric's orchestra was staying.
This is where I got a view of some ugly Finnish architecture: this is the hotel:

The photo does have the redeeming quality of also showing two Saabs of notably different vintages in the foreground.

This is also where I observed a real oddity of Finnish architecture:



Notice that there are permanent ladders going onto the roofs. Presumably these are needed to clear snow from blocked chimneys.

The hotel meals (served buffet-style to the orchestra and its guests) consisted of Finnish cuisine: seafood, boiled vegetables, some sort of potato, and beet salad. The veggies amongst us were not impressed.

At about 10:30 PM, I went outside and shot some pictures:


If you think these pictures are interesting, there are better ones coming from the canoe trip.