Here's the day in the right order, and you can play match the photo to the paragraph.
It was our last full day and I remembered to take a picture of the table case. Scandinavians seem to have a talent for small lovely things, usually related to nature, and these table vases at breakfast were a prime example.
Ir was an earlier than usual coach time in the afternoon so we had decided to spend a relaxing morning on the terrace outside the dining room with our books. Unfortunately another member of our group had decided to descend upon an unsuspecting family of Swedes and proclaim her wonderfulness in all walks of life at what sounded like the top of her voice for the whole morning. Defeated we took our books back to our room and went for a walk in the surrounding countryside.
There were funghi, there was a lake and there was an interesting piece of fallen bark. I swear I did not pose that picture. It looks like I put a small log on a piece of bark that resembles an old book, but that is exactly how I came across it, all I did was get out the phone and take the photo. The hotel grounds also contain some left over trenches from the Winter War.
One of the reasons the coach was early was because several of the group weren't fit enough to walk into Kerimaki but still wanted to see the biggest wooden church in Europe/The World, so we stopped there for half an hour on our way to the opera. This gave the OH and me time to go and sample the cake in the lovely cafe opposite the church; when we'd walked into the town ourselves we hadn't been hungry enough to have a cake, being still stuffed from breakfast and anticipating lunch.
The opera was The Magic Flute. Regular readers will know this is not one of my favourites, but I liked this production from several points of view, not least that the Queen of the Night was more sympathetic than usual and Pamina was shown as being more conflicted in the choice between her parents.
[And actually, if it came to it, which would you choose; a parent who was worried enough to send a handsome young prince to rescue you from imprisonment, or the one who kidnapped you in the first place and knowingly put you into the hands of a sadistic pervert? I mean, is it even a choice? Well Mozart thought so, and then made her make the wrong one, but you know, her dad had had the pervert flogged within an inch of his life (and that's such a recommendation!) so perhaps it is a happy ending after all.]
The dragon was splendid, and actually breathed real fire, which is more than Elfin Safety would put up with in Britain I suspect. There were lots of small children playing the woodland animals and they were all totally charming, especially the little boy who played the hedgehog.
The set was minimal but effective, and the opera was sung in Finnish (and oh how that annoyed most of the rest of our group. The very idea. Sung in Finnish, in Finland with a Finish cast. How dare they. Given that it was originally written in German I can only assume from the fuss they made they were all fluent German speakers and were lamenting the loss of opportunity to follow the performance in that language. Ha! Anyway there were English subtitles if you wanted them.
It would have been a totally joyous evening had it not been for the behaviour (previously mentioned) of a fellow traveller who harangued the Finnish lady behind her in the interval for 'constantly rustling sweet papers'. and 'thoughtlessly ruining her enjoyment of the evening'. Since we were next to the irate Englishwoman and had heard nothing it can't have been that loud; not, as it transpired, could it have been constant. When I spoke to the lady concerned afterwards she explained she had been releasing medication from a packet, tablets she had to take to a very strict timetable, and so had had to take it out during the performance. The haranguer spent a lot of the next day loudly proclaiming that 'it had been the worst performance of The Magic Flute she had ever seen, which led me to wonder if she had actually ever seen it before at all. I've never seen a performance of the Flute which gave Ingmar Bergman's magical film of the opera such a close run for its money. My word, she was toxic. I never heard her say a single positive thing about anything all the time we were there. I realise this probably means she's a very unhappy person, but even that reflection leaves me cold and without sympathy. Because you can be unhappy but courteous at the same time.
So that was a bit of a blot but otherwise it was wonderful. Our experience of the Opera Festival was very positive and we are hoping to go back next year but under our own steam. Apart from anything else I want another crack at the raspberry and liquorice ice cream.
Oh, that awful woman! Honestly, there's always one......
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