Northern lights and local trips

Tampere by night seen from Näsijärvi lake

According the Finnish weather forecast company last weekend was supposed to be excellent for seeing Northern lights due to strong solar flare in the sun.

However the weather forecast showed cloudy weather to southern part of Finland and I was bit skeptical to see any Northern lights. I went to bed on Friday and of course the clouds swept away during the night and there were beautiful Northern lights.

Tent at Siilinkari - islet

On Saturday I decided to paddle on a small islet - Siilinkari - just 1 km next to my house on Näsijärvi - lake. I pitched the tent and started to watch the dark sky hoping to see Northern lights. But I was not lucky, the solar flare was a very short one and lights were visible only on Friday night.

Lighthouse at dawn

OK. Instead of the Northern lights I spent a night on Siilinkari and took photos during the night and morning. I'll share some of those here.

From Iran to Baku, Azerbaijan

Delicious!

Tabriz has the world largest covered bazaar and I must admit it feels like a huge endless maze, from where you can find and buy everything you need. There's everything from jewellery to shoes, from spices to household goods, from clothes to carpets...

Empty streets of Baku

After travelling one week in Iran, I was flying to Baku, Azerbaijan. Baku is called as a city of wind and indeed it turned out to be windy. It was hard to communicate with the locals, they didn't speak English at all or just a few words. 

The old town

However I managed to take a bus from the airport to center of town. Although there are over 2 millions residents in Baku, there were not too many people walking on the streets and no traffic jams.

Ready for sauna

It was nice to have a possibility to have a sauna at a hotel after two weeks travelling. Enjoyable!