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Showing posts from February, 2011

Porvoo - nice place for one day visit

City of Porvoo is an excellent choice for one day visit if you want to see an old smaller city and learn something about the history of Finland. Porvoo is located appr 70km east from Helsinki and by car it takes appr. 45 minutes to drive motorway. There is also a good frequent bus connection to Porvoo and by bus it takes appr. 50-60 minutes from Helsinki to Porvoo. The most popular place for visits in Porvoo is by far Old Town and the beautiful Cathedral. Cathedral of Porvoo is the third most popular church in Finland as measured in number of visitors. The Cathedral has been repaired after the fire in 2006. Porvoo is ideal for 1/2 or full day visits. You can learn more about the  City of Porvoo here .

Voting in Finland

Finland is a democracy and parliament elections are every fourth and presidental elections in every sixth year. In these elections only persons with Finnish nationality can vote. However in the city level municipal elections all persons (18 years old or more) who have permanent adress in the city or town and citizenship in some EU country, Norway or Iceland, can vote. Also citizens of other countries can vote if they have had permanent adress in the city or town for more than two years.

Loyalty cards of different shops

If you are staying in Finland for longer than typical tourist visit, you notice that many Finnihs companies offer their loyalty cards and give special prices for their frequently visiting customers. Most of them give very little benefit and their main focus is to get contact information of customers for targeted advertising. However there are some loyalty cards that many finns do have and you should consider. 1. S-Etukortti . You cannot avoid using services of S-Group in Finland because they have strong market position in retail shopping (Sokos, S-Market, Alepa), hotels (S-Hotels), restaurants (Chico's, Rosso, Coffee House, Amarillo and many others) and gas stations (ABC). Their loyalty card is called Co-op membership and you can get benefit every time you visit any S-Group company. 2. Another major player in Finland is Kesko and their loyalty card is called Plussa-card . Unfortunately their website is only in Finnish. If you have the S-Etukortti and this Plussa-card you have a

Holidays in Finland

If you are working in a Finnish company and your employment is based on the Finnish legislation you will have four weeks summer holiday and one week winter holiday after few years of working. You will have the full summer holiday after one year of working and year after that you will have also the winter holiday. In addition to this there are some national holidays in Finland. For example the Independece day 6.12 and the spring festival at the first of May.

Best restaurants in Helsinki

There are many rather good modestly priced average restaurants in Helsinki but only few excellent high class Restaurants. The most famous restarants where you can take business fellows and be sure you get excellent service are: G.W. Sundmans Michelin rated G.W. Sundmans is located by the sea very close to the market square. G.W. Sundmans is one of the appreciated high-end restaurants in Helsinki. Chez Dominique Chez Dominique is definitely a high-end restaurant just like G.W.Sundmans. However their dishes are sometimes more expremental. http://www.eat.fi/ is an excellent website to search for restaurants in Helsinki.

The best hotel in Finland - Hotel Kämp

Madonna, Bono, The Rolling Stones and many other world famous stars choose Hotel Kämp when their world tour visits Helsinki. There is more about Hotel Kämp in one hotel blog .