Ready, Set, Copenhagen!

We couldn't really understand the warbled voice over the loudspeaker, but context clues told us we'd better watch our heads.  The canal tour of Copenhagen was coming to an end and the final, oldest, lowest bridge cut things pretty close.  These boats were designed for just this moment, to fit through snugly like a coin into a slot.  The sides scratched and bumped a little, but we made it through to the other side.  Canal tour, check.  We had visitors in town this week and they came armed with a handy book filled with Top Tens for Copenhagen.  This wasn't a travel guide, it was a challenge, a game, an adventure that had us whizzing through the city collecting pieces for a figurative jigsaw puzzle called The Complete Copenhagen Experience.

"We're not doing what you guys are doing.  We're here to be tourists.  We have to see all the sights."  Parents have a knack for saying things like that, a declaration that hovers somewhere between judgement and praise.  A little befuddled, I began to think about the difference between what we're doing and decided that it's not all that different.  All tourism is essentially a scavenger hunt.  Maybe our personal top tens don't always include that statue, that tour or that attraction (Amalienborg Palace, Check.  Tivoli Gardens, Check).  Maybe ours are more often eat singed lamb head, try to fit in with the cool kids in such and such neighborhood, spelunk, but we have that list we try to check off nonetheless.  Visiting a foreign country can be a brief stint at trying another life on for size.  So, these Top Tens or To Dos are really just the bucket lists for those lives.  Who knows if you'll ever find yourself back in Copenhagen?

It's often difficult to know where to start in a city, what to focus on, how to crack the local code.  In Copenhagen, the place to start is undoubtedly the bike rental shop.  (Ride Bikes, Check).  We kept ours for three days, using them to get everywhere.  On the bicycles we were invisible, just a part of the two-wheeled traffic.  There was no walking slowly, clutching a map or hopping on and off a big red bus.  It gave our safari an instant sense of adventure and individuality.  It gave our experience of Copenhagen a true feeling of authenticity, just us and the locals signaling and ringing bells with the pedaling commuters.  Anonymity.  Well, until the last few hours of our final day when my father's brakes began to wear down and his arrival at a stop light was announced loudly to the entire city.  The sound can best be described as two donkeys on a rusted seesaw.

 

The canal tour gave us a new perspective on the city.  Places we'd pedaled through, Christianhavn, Nyhavn, looked different from our below-street-level viewpoint.  The buildings rose up around us, boats were parked (and in some cases double and triple parked) along the sides of the canals.  People were out doing post-season work on their vessels, a dog sat next to a deck barbecue.  Inching through narrow bridges and canals is a lot more romantic than squeezing through narrow streets in a bus and there was a great fly-on-the wall feeling about it. 

There were multi-course explorations of New Nordic cuisine (Check), there were cold Carlsberg brews and smørbrød (Check and Check), there were many coffees at many cafes.  This one, Bang & Jensen, was our go to spot in Vesterbro, where our rental apartment was located.  We were excited to bring our guests, to show them this cool place we'd discovered.  As it turns out, the cafe was one of the first to move into the neighborhood, at the helm of its transformation/gentrification from red-light to hip neighborhood.  "It's on the list!" we were informed to mixed emotions.  A small part of us felt like we'd fallen into some sort of trap, the pride in our 'find' stripped from us.  But, then there was a new feeling of pride in our instincts and that we'd led our little team to another victory (Bang & Jensen, Check!).  After 47 countries and 38 capital cities, maybe we've just gotten good at this. 

Restaurant Klubben made its way onto one of the Top Ten lists because of its 'large portions of traditional Danish food.'  Restaurants in tourist guides are always a double edged sword.  Yes, you have a recommendation to go by, but you also run the risk of eating in a room full of other people clutching said guide.  When we walked into Klubben, which was packed on a Thursday evening, my father and his wife, two native New Yorkers, pointed to the counter.  "Takeout.  You know it's a good local joint when there's takeout."  People streamed in past us to grab their orders.  "This is the real deal."  The checkered table cloths, loud groups and enormous platters of meat screamed 'family dinner.'  A tiny old woman whose wrinkled mouth suggested toothlessness served us our homecooked grub with aplumb and we rolled out full and happy.  Another sign of authenticity:  the place was empty by 9:30.  Danes eat early.  Restaurant Klubben, traditional Danish food, stewed pork heart (Check, Check and Check).

Next up, Freetown Christiania, the 40 year old self-governing section of Copenhagen, which is part squat, part utopia.  They have their own health care, currency, school system, post office, constitution.  It is a hippie commune, a haven for the homeless and a 'safe place' for addicts who can no longer function in society.  It is also a community of 850 that rejects capitalism and governs their property ownership and local business in ways that benefit everyone.  We saw only a sliver of the neighborhood, entering through the main gate and immediately being approached by an old man.

'Where it says no photos. Don't take photos.'  (We happen to always follow such rules).  'They will take your camera and smash it,' he repeated emphatically.  'Smash it.'  It ruffled our feathers.  The strong stench of hash, signs saying not to run because it 'causes panic,' and the blocks of resin for sale next to buds and pipes on Pusher Street turned us off from an afternoon family stroll further afield.  It was a shame, because we never really got to the idyllic heart of the place, to the kooky architectural creations, to the fish-filled lake and ecovillage center which inspired the broader sustainability plan for Copenhagen.  We checked Freetown off our list, but barely scratched the surface.  Just how these things go sometimes.

On the other end of the spectrum, but at the center of millions of visitors' plans in Copenhagen, is the little mermaid.  Her head is turned down in a plaintive, somber way, perhaps dreaming of her former fins, perhaps bashful at all the attention.  Like the mannekin pis in Brussels, the diminutive statue is a sort of mascot for a city that can't and shouldn't be quantified by big-ticket items.  In a lot of ways, the mermaid is a perfect Danish icon.  She was given to the city by the Carlsberg family in 1913 and is, of course, the creation of Hans Christian Anderson (arguably the country's most famous son).  The original statue has never been on display, the sculptor's family keeps it somewhere secret and sells authorized copies from their website.  Through her almost 200 year old life on the rock, the little mermaid has been decapitated, blown up, draped in a burqa, painted, sawed at, replaced in parts and altogether.  But maybe it's better not to tell the tourists that.  Then again, so long as its at the top of the lists, I doubt anyone will care.

A Collection of Collections

Pieces of the only surviving gown belonging to Marie Antoinette.  A u-boat reconnaissance helicopter. Four hedgerow mazes. A museum dedicated to old groceries.  Another museum of Falck rescue vehicles, another of dolls, a barn of old farm equipment, more than a hundred motorcycles, planes, Parisian dresses, American cars, African shields, scent gardens, comic strips, folding campers, novelty bicycles, rare stamps, Japanese lanterns, chicken coops, treetop walkways, license plates, hotdog stands, cursed figures, impala heads... even Dracula's crypt!  It's all at Egeskov Slot, one of the most interesting and strange places we've ever walked around.  Containing no less than eight on-site museums, this is a castle experience that only just begins with bricks and arrow slits.

Egeskov castle lies at the end of a long, treelined allé in the flat countryside of Funen Island.  It's an interesting structure (billed as "Europe's best preserved renaissance water castle") that we'd come to for a castle-hunting post.  The sky was grey, though, and the light was too flat for good pictures. Funen - sometime's called "Denmark's larder" - is a low, central isle covered in beet fields and dotted with beef cows.  We passed thatched roofs and half-timbered houses on our way to the castle, all cloaked with fog and buffeted by the damp sea-wind.
If the weather was disappointing, what we found wasn't.  Let's put it this way: we arrived at Egeskov a few minutes before the gates opened at 10:00.  We left at three-thirty, half an hour before closing.  And there was still more to see.  Here, a remote-controlled, steam-powered toy boat splashes and puffs its way around the castle lake.  It let out intermittent whistles and made a delightfully self-important gurgling, chugging sound.

The name Egeskov means "oak forest," which refers to the one thousand oak pilings that the castle is built on.  Originally constructed in 1554, the fortifications are actually on the surface of the water - surprisingly, it hasn't sunk much in the centuries since.  The sight is staggering even in dim conditions - it's the kind of place one assumes couldn't really exist.*
The castle's biggest enthusiast, probably, is the current owner and inhabitant, Count Michael Ahlefeldt-Laurvig-Bille.  He appears on the castle website, in the brochures and in several on-site videos.  His exploits are told and retold on different info-boards: he rescued an ancient Harley Davidson from a recluse's garage, he built the world's biggest maze, he "thoroughly explored" the castle moat (Michael's a "keen diver") and dredged up old plates and canons.  We laughed when we read this bit of pomp on the official website: "Legend has it that, in the mid 1960s, a boy was born to the name Michael Ahlefeldt-Laurvig-Bille. Today he is the Count at Egeskov and lives in Egeskov itself."

*Not only does it exist - there are TWO Egeskov's.  A one-to-one replica was built as part of the Hokkaido Aquarium, in Japan, which is truly bizarre.  

We laughed again when we read about the count's very own suit of armor (the same one he wears on the website).  An information board tells how having the armor made fulfilled "a childhood dream" for the count.  Supposedly, it's an exact replica of the suit worn by a distant ancestor, Frands Brockenhuus - we're betting that old Frands also had a taste for the dramatic, because the piece was absolutely festooned with weaponry and covered in gold details.
Egeskov - the building - is packed to the rafters with bits and pieces from several lifetimes of collecting. The bottom floor is given over, in large part, to hunting trophies from the current count's grandfather.  Under the eaves is a strange array of windup toys and an impressive model train.  There's victorian cookware, furniture from the court of Louis XVI, old paintings, several pianos, aspic molds, rare books, metal chests, family trees and louche knick-knacks. The staff does an admirable job of dusting, but the place still feels a bit like an overcrowded antiques shop.

Fittingly, the prize attraction at Egeskov is another overstuffed house... this time in miniature.  Titania's palace is advertised as "probably the most fairytale dolls' house in the world," which is actually a bit of an understatement.  Dreamed up and built by the Englishman Sir Nevile Wilkinson for his daughter, Gwendolyn, the palace is crammed with minuscule artifacts collected over fifteen years.  The world's smallest working church organ, for example, and several dozen rare, coin-sized books.  In all, there are over three thousand pieces in the doll house.  Tiny photographs, little snowshoes, mahogany furniture, bathtubs, teddybears the size of ladybugs, porcelain figurines and potted plants fill the 18 rooms.  The decorative style is pure victorian overstuff.  It draws a crowd.

Count Michael's parents had already opened up the family home to paying visitors in the 1980's, and one has to assume that the 200,000 annual visitors are let in to pay for upkeep - it's not a cheap ticket, castles (especially ones built on the water) are expensive to maintain.  We couldn't help but wonder, though, if our host didn't relish the attention.
For all his boasting, Michael has made his home really fun.  A birdsong walk snakes through the treetops (like a small-scale baumkronenpfad), there are stilts to use, a maze to explore and, of course, Dracula's crypt... which could never be adequately explained.  The exhibits are so diverse that it would be impossible to visit and not find something of interest.  If motorcycles aren't your thing, you might like the French fashion magazine illustrations or the old harvesting machines.

The end of October is a slow time in Denmark.  The country's tourist attractions are winding up their summer hours, the days are getting dark and short, the country roads are nearly deserted.  We toured Egeskov on the last day of autumn break, before all the schoolchildren headed back to their desks and their parents went back to work.  It was Egeskov's last day open until spring.  A few special exhibitions were going on - in the Falck museum, some remote-controlled truck devotees were driving and talking about their semis.  In the main barn, where the bulk of the airplanes and cars are kept, a model steam and gas engine show was happening.  Stacks of Popular Mechanic lay on the tables next to working airplane miniatures and chuffing steam cranks.
The cars were an eclectic mix of Detroit (lots of Cadillacs and Fords), Germany (especially Mercedes) and some more exotic brands (Ferrari, Morgan, a schoolbus-sized Rolls Royce, electric one-seaters, Danish bubble cars).  Overhead hung an ultralight and a few small airplanes, a float helicopter sat on the mezzanine, rickshaws and camper vans crowded into the corners.

Such is the breadth of Egeskov's collections that some pretty serious contrasts happen in the spaces where two museums collide.  Troll dolls rub up against bicycles, kitchen pots are hung next to spring-powered monkeys, hunting trophies bristle on the same wall as collectable postage.  There are even little mini-collections that seemingly have no real place, and so are stashed away in some incongruous spot.  In the middle of the motorcycles, for example, we found a display of wooden farm animals.  Here, plastic dolls surround one of half a dozen campers.

What do you do when you inherit a family castle, your parents collections, your grandparents cars, ancestral hedgerows and formal gardens?  It must, in some ways, be tempting to sell the whole thing and walk away from the junk and the cobwebs, the headache of keeping everything dry and upright.  Or, as many European castle owners do, rent the pile out to vacationing oligarchs and live somewhere else. Count Michael seems like a different sort, though. He's not only embraced the chaos, he's added to it - particularly in the motorcycle department.
When we caught the bus back to our seaside rooming house, we wondered what the place is like in the offseason.  Egeskov is technically closed from now until April, but it's still a home.  We pictured the count (and countess, Michael is married) roaming the hallways, dreaming up new exhibits and scarier touches for his crypt, starting up his motorcycles and sitting in the old cars.  We wondered if he skated on the frozen moat or ate dinner in the big feasting hall.  It must feel very empty once all the tourists have left and the staff's gone home.  When you live in a museum, do you prefer to have it full of people or all to yourself?

Carlsberg Bryghus

In winter-hardened, cobblestoned Copenhagen, the thing to drink is beer.  Sure, Danes will dabble in wine or sip at a cocktail, but look at any bartop and you're likely to see more bottles and half-liter glasses than anything else.  And in those glasses, chances are, one is likely to find one of two beers - Tuborg or Carlsberg - even if the color varies and the taste does change.  These two pillars of Danish brewing are actually part of the same company, and, until recently, they bubbled to life at the same place.
In the heart of Copenhagen, on a little rise (nothing in Denmark approaches a real hill) that catches the October sunlight, is one of the grandest and horsiest breweries we've ever seen.  We spent the better part of a morning and noontime there, eating, drinking and looking at barrels.

The Carlsberg plant is so large that it actually constitutes an entire neighborhood of Copenhagen.  The buildings are of fantastic brick and copper, the architectural style is pure 19th century industrial pomp.  Approaching the main gates is akin to walking up to a palace - huge elephants hold up a tower, statues peer out of windows, theres a lighthouse and gardens, chimneys and archways.  A touch of Willy Wonka pervades the place, lent by the magic of booming business and rivers of product, but
it's mostly a show; the brewery was decommissioned in 2008, and the neighborhood (known as "Carlsberg-distriktet") is in the process of being developed into a livable space.  Carlsberg's made a modern dance center out of their old mineral water building, and the bottling plant has become a conference and exhibition space; soon, apartments will begin going in.  Still, beer is the dominant theme.  A small brewery remains in use for specialty products, there's a museum, stables and a visitors complex.

For those with visions of musty cellars, dripping taps and booming barrels, a visit to Carlsberg might seem a little sanitary at first.  The museum's collection mostly consists of old wagons and beer trucks (there's even a Tuborg rickshaw, from India, and a Chevrolet in the shape of a cask), with a smattering of copper tanks and ancient laboratory vials.  You can certainly get a sense of age, but most of the facilities have been thoroughly modernized.  There are loads of videos and two slick taverns, colored lights, giftshop soccer jerseys, scent machines and foosball tables.  In the same way that beer advertisements blend "sepia-tinted tradition" with "awesome nightclub," Carlsberg has tried to amp up its artifacts with flatscreens and glass walls. This is a beer tour, after all, not some lame skansen.

The stables were a highlight because it's hard for mammoth animals not to act genuine.  Carlsberg's "ambassadors" - some two dozen Jutland draft horses - live in a bright, clean space somewhere between the giftshop cash registers and the stools of in-house Bar 1847.  We'd seen the one-ton horses pulling tourist carts around town, but not up close.  Jutlands are huge.  They were used extensively for pulling loaded beer-carts, and became known as bryggerheste, or "brewery horses."  The breed almost died out in the 1970's, but has been revived a little since.  One can pet the ambassadors (who look a little bored), watch them get hitched, see them trot out the gates and then return in a sweat.

Carlsberg was founded in the 1840's by an industrialist named J. C. Jacobsen, who began a laboratory that developed beer yeast for pilsners and the concept of pH.  The beer company grew rapidly, and began exporting in 1868 - its distinctly pale pilsner was a hit in Europe, and by the 20th century Carlsberg was among the largest breweries on the continent.
It wasn't until later, though, that the brewing company became the giant that it is today.  In the 1960's, the Carlsberg group began brewing internationally and snapping up competing brands - including Tetley, Baltika, Kronenbourg Lav, Mythos, various asian products and (Danish competitor) Tuborg.  Still, it's the company's original beer that dominates the world, making Carlsberg the fourth largest beer company on earth.  It accounts for forty percent of all beer sales in Russia and - as far as we can tell - is stocked in every supermarket from London to Tbilisi.

Included in the price of admission to the visitor's center are two (admittedly small) beers at either of the on-site bars.  At Bar 1847, the popular pour was a new beer - Jacobsen's brown ale.  It was sweet and supposedly inspired by British style beers.
Outside in the insipid sunshine, we wandered in autumn garden and listened to the clomping of large hooves.  There was a decorative hops greenhouse and a miniature version of Copenhagen's famous little mermaid statue.  The day was warm, even a little beer was enough to feel sleepy.

The other "tavern" is really a slick, multi-floor extravaganza where families eat lunch above a working bottling plant.  We ate herring, pate and pork meatballs at Jacobsen Brewhouse and Bar, watched Carlsberg commercials and drank pilsner.  It was a light-wood and stainless steel space, outfitted with three copper vats and a long, shiny bar.  The food was good, the atmosphere convivial, the crowd substantial.

Production's been moved west, to Fredericia in Jutland.  Perhaps its just as well - modern beer brewing has little to do with rolling barrels and building with brick.  It would have been fun to see the clattering rows of bottles and the blur of filling and capping.  But, mostly empty, this visit made for a more relaxing day.  After our second beer and a game of foosball, full of fish and liver, we got back on our bikes and rode down the cobblestoned hill to Copenhagen - it really felt as though we'd been away.
J. C. Jacobsen famously had a "beautiful" chimney built for his brewery (the curving, many-detailed "winding smokestack") because he wanted to show the world that a factory could be more than just an industrial site.  He wanted grandeur for his brews.  And, in the movies that play in the museum, you can hear echoes of that old splendor.  In one film, men sing lusty songs as they clean giant casks and harness elephantine horses - the songs sound almost nationalistic, anthems devoted to beer, as though Carlsberg were a nation unto itself.
At least the horses are still just as big.

Age-Old Amusements

When you first arrive in Copenhagen, emerging from Central Station, you may hear blood-curdling screams.  It's not exactly a sound you like to hear in a metropolis.  But just look up above the trees and you'll realize you have nothing to fear.  Gleeful shrieks have been emanating from Tivoli Gardens since 1843 - it's the second oldest running amusement park in the world.  Above newly-bare branches, over and under sagging power lines, between the buildings, you glimpse people secured into chairs of all kinds.  Soaring, dropping, spinning, swinging, screaming, flying past. 

Tivoli Gardens doesn't really hold a strong torch for the second word in its name at the end of October.  All of the spring/summer flowers are long gone and pounds upon pounds of pumpkins have been brought in to take their place.  Halloween at Tivoli is an event, a "Halloween" that feels truest to the American sense of the word.  We're talking faux cobwebs, ghosts, festivities, excess.  The cotton candy is orange, as were the sprinkles on my ice cream cone.  It is gorgeous at night, lit with orange jack-o-lanterns and white twinkling lights.  We picked up two plastic cups of hot apple cider, homemade with spices and love.  This being Europe and not America, it was hard cider and there was an option to add a shot of rum, gin or port (we declined).  There was also a machine at every big intersection that allowed you to deposit your cup and get a 5 krone coin back.  It was like a slot machine where you always won.

Tivoli Garden's original name was Tivoli & Vauxhall, after a Parisian garden (that was named after the place in Rome) and the Vauxhall Gardens in London.  One of the oldest buildings there today pays homage to other international locations.  The "Chinese-style" Pantomime Theater was built in 1874 and has always featured Italian pantomime productions.  I'm not really sure why it was designed to look Chinese, but do wish I could have seen the mechanical peacock's feather that serves as the stage's curtain.   Surrounding the park are its restaurants,  The Hercegovina (billed as "a bit of Croatia," which is baffling), wagamama (an Asian food chain) and Hard Rock Cafe (USA, born and bred).

But the truest inspiration for Tivoli probably came from very close to home.  10 kilometers north of Copenhagen is Dyrehavsbakken, the only working amusement park in the world older than Tivoli.  There's no doubt that founder Georg Carstensen got his idea from there.  One of the throwbacks to that era still around today is the Tivoli Boys Guard.  The troupe, about 100 boys aged 8 -16, perform songs, march around and 'guard' the buildings.  I'm sorry to put 'guard' in quotes, but their intimidation factor is similar to that of the Vatican's Swiss Guards.  In the good ole days, they were paid with beer.  Best gig ever.

For all the Buckingham-esque uniforms and international tastes, Tivoli Gardens still struck us as decidedly Danish.  It's Denmark's biggest tourist attraction, but Danes themselves pile through the gates along with us foreigners.  We were actually visiting during a school holiday and generations of families who'd all grown up coming here walked around the place like it was second nature.  No maps are given at the door.  Wood was piled neatly in places, a windmill turned, vendors sold pork hot dogs and pulled pork sandwiches (Denmark is the highest consumer of pork per capita in the world).  Tivoli doesn't feel like a carnival, a sensory onslaught.  The manic, loud, cartoonish feeling so many amusement parks have isn't present here.  As Walt Disney remarked after visiting, there is a "happy and unbuttoned air of relaxed fun."  It's something that he is said to have tried to emulate in his own creation, Disneyland.

We didn't go on any rides, because we're embarrassingly impatient on most lines, but we did visit the in-house aquarium.  A fish feeding was going on, a shark feeding had just been missed, and the tanks were filled with exotic fish.  It's impossible to move quickly in an aquarium and it's amazing to see people stop, sit and gaze hypnotically at the fish.  All the powers a flickering movie or television screen has to hold your attention plus the fascination and awe inherent in the natural world make for a captivating experience.  Children hurdled downstairs in the midst of a sugar rush only to be lulled into awe by the aquarium.

"Tivoli will never, so to speak, be finished" - Georg Cartsensen, 1843.  
One of the world's oldest roller coasters, the wooden Rutschebanen built in 1914, is at Tivoli, as is the awesome Star Flyer, a 260+ foot 'swing ride' that spins 24 people at a time around a watchtower high above the city.   The newest ride, Vertigo, was absolutely mesmerizing to us.  We stood, rapt, frightened, watching for a good ten minutes.  These four-seater planes are controlled by the riders, so you can hit 'turbo' and zoom so fast the people underneath you may squeal.  You can also flip and spin as you'd like.

I may have been even more impressed by this, though.  Bumper boats.  Why don't they have this in America? There was this feeling of giddiness in the air at Tivoli and the lack of a care in the world.  When Georg Carstensen decided he wanted to build the park, he appealed to King Christian VIII himself.  It's not every day someone wanted a chunk of land in a city center for what may be seen as frivolous purposes.  "When the people are amusing themselves, they do not think about politics,"  he apparently told the king to sway him.  Music to a politician's ears.

Finnish Sweets and Treats

Puuro is about as Finnish as you can get.  At every breakfast (and even at some dinners) we were offered porridge - sometimes made from oats, sometimes including rice, usually just semolina.  Finns eat porridge sweet or salty, with chocolate, whipped with berries, filled with cream or just plain.  It feels like a northern, cold-weather dish.  And, filled with tart berries from the arctic fells?  Through the intense sourness, with a purple stained tongue, one might admit that they tasted the essence of Finland's sweets culture - not too sugary, a wholesome base, decidedly quirky.

Porvoo is twee.  It's tearooms are chintzy.  Runeberg tart, it's local specialty, is delicious.  We picked this one out at Cafe Fanny, from a lineup of more staid treats.  Made from almond flour, jam and rum, Runebergs are surprisingly light.
Porvoo is known for its sweets, and its easy to get tempted often - there are chocolates, licorices and caramels in every window, begging to be gobbled up.  But this is something of a Finnish anomaly.  In fact, we found that Finns generally like more solid, less sweet, decidedly nordic treats.

The waitress at Bagarstugan Café & Vin, in Mariehamn, asked if I wanted my Ålandspannkaka with strawberry jam (she shook her head no and frowned) or the traditional prune cream (she smiled and nodded her head yes).  I took the hint and went with the prunes.
Ålands "pannkaka" bears very little resemblance to most pancakes - it's a dense, rice cake that's springy with egg and often served cold.  Rice flour seems like a strange ingredient to find on a cold archipelago in the Baltic Sea, but the Åland shipping industry connected the islands with Asia and the Pacific for centuries.  Because growing grains in the harsh climate was so difficult, a lot were imported anyway - why not rice?
The prune "cream" was more of a compote, and was the perfect sweetness to accompany the rich pannkaka.  When the waitress asked if I wanted whipped cream, she was nodding and smiling again.

Hillomunakas is a close relative to the Ålands pancake, but it's generally treated a little more roughly.  I found this example in a grubby, gas-station display case in Inari; precut, pre-jammed, several hours (or days) old.  On a cold day, with coffee, it didn't matter.
Basically a sweetened, slightly floured omelette, hillomunakas is usually served with jam.  In fact, some Finns translate the name to "jam omelette," which doesn't quite do the thing justice. It's more of an egg cake, browned in the broiler and topped with preserves or berries.  I did see more appealing versions, but they weren't handy when I needed them most.

At breakfast buffets and roadside joints, hyper sweetened strawberry preserve or orange marmalade has begun to encroach upon Finnland's own fruit traditions.  But the further north you go, the tarter, smaller and more woodsy the berries get.  Mustikka (bilberries, similar to blueberries), puolukka (lingonberries), vadelmat (tiny, wild raspberries) and even karpalot (cranberries) are common in the upper regions of the country, while the orangish tyrni (sea buckthorn) is a coastal delicacy.
Our hostesses in Sevettijärvi, where we stayed on a reindeer farm, served us their gourmet take on the woodland fruits: homemade bilberry icecream and buttery crepes with lingonberries.

Another common gas-station find are the silly sounding munkki donuts, which differ not a bit from other donuts.  I had this one at the Siida museum, after a heavy plate of reindeer casserole.  It had everything one wants in a donut - sugar, fat and a hole.  The surprise?  It was also made with whole wheat flour.

Like everyone, Finns love their ice cream.  They also like doing interesting things with it.  At the Hotel Kuntahovi, in Inari, I was served a "smoke sauna" dessert: tar flavored ice cream and birch-leaf sorbet.  It was... smokey.  At Porvoo's cosmopolitan, excellent Bistro Sinne, I was given this licorice ice cream. It was custardy, tasty and local (Porvoo is known for their licorice).

The most common tart in Finnland turns out... not to be sweet at all.  Karjalanpiirakat, from the Karelian region of Finnland, near the Russian border, surprised us on the first try.  What is it?  A thin, toothsome rye crust filled with rice and butter.  That's all.  To the skeptical, I'll say that it's much more delicate than it sounds. To the disappointed, I'll say: try it with some jam.

Porvoo

Katarina at Staghallen Brewery in Åland told us that Porvoo was her favorite place in Finland. Natalia at our homestay in Sevettijärvi told us she got married in Porvoo.  It's easy to see why this place stirs up such emotion in people.  Porvoo is the second oldest city in Finland and it's this perfect combination of elements.  There's the Porvoo river, the parkland around, old wooden storehouses and a copper-topped historic cathedral.  It's all centered upon the Old Town square, relatively 'new' in terms of this nearly thousand year old town.  Built all a'scramble in that winding, clumped medieval style, the Old Town was nearly re-gridded for ease and logic in the late 1800s.  The people of Porvoo protested and straight lines and streets were set up elsewhere.  Even then, the Finns new that this place feels special, you they fought to preserve it.

Porvoo is only an hour by bus from Helsinki. Since the capital itself doesn't really have an "Old Town" per se, it's a little like the city's European Medieval Charm - cobbled streets, labyrinthine lanes -  has been outsourced to Porvoo.  A bit of tweeness has understandably sprung up around the main knobby square, at the foot of the old Porvoo Cathedral.  The church is one of Finland's oldest and largest, mainly built in the 15th century with some parts dating back to the original 13th century.  The centuries that followed brought fires, bombs, arsonist attacks.  It also brought the first Diet of Finland in 1809, which declared the country's autonomy from Russia. If buildings were quilts, there'd be a square commemorating each milestone in the life of the Porvoo Cathedral.  Wooden beams here, stone there, patches of repairs that span 700 years.

The stores and restaurants around the cathedral follow along those lines, a 'times gone by' aesthetic, offering the best little nuggets from the past.  There are antique shops, second hand clothing stores, vintage prints and toy boutiques, candy wrapped in retro packaging, tin crowns and wooden swords.  Anything that makes you think "pleasant, pretty Porvoo" and "the past."
There's also a country chic feel of wicker and floral decor. Leather jacket and denim are ditched for knits and tweeds.  Daytrippers eat it up, quenching their thirst for old world European charm before heading back to the big city to soak up stylish modernity.

Though, honestly, if they just spent the night they'd feel the full thrust of youthful energy right here.  With so many options in such a small place, it was actually easier to swing and not miss here in Porvoo than it had been in Helsinki.  We chose casual pub food at an old chemists-turned-bar with live acoustic music, but were very tempted by the fancier restaurant Timbaali which has a whole menu of locally farmed escargot.  There may or may not have been sirens in the night and some vomit around the ATM machine on Sunday morning to signal how hard some in Porvoo actually party.  Bottom line is that this isn't just a museum town, but a vibrant mini city that's worth more than just a few hours during the day.

When we went into the brand new Art Factory culture center to visit the tourist office and stumbled upon an Eko Fair of green businesses, a dance troupe of young women practicing in the hallway and a restaurant called Bistro Sinne a'bustle with brunchers.  Sinne calls itself a 'bistro,' but the presentation and taste were fine dining all the way.   Everything was locally sourced and treated like rare jewels.  No wrinkled mushrooms or over dressed greens here.  A blazer wearing family of twelve sang Happy Birthday in three part harmony at a long table in the center of the dining room.  It rendition was so classy that no one even applauded after (our own few claps went, mostly, unnoticed). 

The Art Factory is on the western shore of the Porvoo river, which fills with kayakers in the summer months.  This side of the river is the newer New Town, residences built at the very end of the 20th century.  There was concern about new housing so close to the historic center, as well as the new bridge it would necessitate.  The answer was simple and actually quite beautiful.  The new houses are red and rust orange, a modernized mirror image of the historic wooden red storehouses across the water.  There's some green and yellow evoking the trees and painted houses of the Old Town, which peak up above the line of red buildings on the other side.  A dappled reflection.  (Above, the eastern shore). 

Though there are sights to see, the thing to really do in Porvoo is stroll.  Our ramble brought us to the Old Railway Station.  On six Saturdays per year, a 'museum rail car' brings tourists from Porvoo to Helsinki.  There is an ironmongers workshop in one old station building and a souvenir shop in another, both closed when we visited in October.  What we were struck by was the collection of decaying trains.  In use from the end of the 19th century until the beginning of the 1990s, the trains now just sit around - their wood warping, paint chipping and metal rusting.  These relics are mementos, artifacts.  But they are also just leftovers, scraps.  They were really beautiful on an autumn afternoon, that time of year when even bright sunshine somehow seems somber.

The train graveyard, as it really felt, gave a feeling of age that no old cobbled square could.  You could really sense the passage of time, the years coating windows with film, yellowing curtains and separating wooden boards.  Gaps here, scrunching there, the wood resembled an aging set of teeth.  Porvoo is a place that city dwellers come to have country elegance and a slower, refined pace. Fresh air and room to breathe.  It's a place where people from the islands of Åland want to come ashore.  It's a place where young women from above the Arctic Circle want to get married.  It is storybook in a very Finnish way.  What I mean is, it doesn't need to scream 'happy ending,' but rather 'we've had some pretty good times, haven't we?'