Finland Day Three

Oh this was a good one! However, since I've just spent ages uploading  the photographs and my laptop has decided to post them here in reverse order, you're going to get the day backwards. I haven't learned how to reorder them, without deleting them all and uploading them all over again. And I had enough trouble getting them off my phone and on to the laptop in the first place. 

So the evening's performance was The Barber of Seville. It's not a favourite of ours to begin with and the Figaro in this blended into the background too much. He should be the prime mover of all the action, you shouldn't be able to take your eyes off him while he's on stage - and this one was all too overlook-able. I have many pictures of the curtain calls but most of them are out of focus, I picked this one since it shows the conductor and the orchestra as well as the main singers. I think I've already said that the orchestra was excellent all three evenings we were there. 

This is the castle of Olavinlinna where the festival is held; an amazing place to stage opera. 

This is one of those up and down fountains, I seem to have caught it in a 'down' phase. 

And this is part of the audience making its way to the pontoon bridge to access the castle. 

A couple of views of the town of Savonlinna where the OH and I spent the afternoon. Most of the group had gone back to the hotel but we wanted to do some walking around by he lake, have a proper look at the craft market, and revisit the shop where we had found the nice Finnish yarn the previous day. So we arranged to stay behind after the morning's steam boat cruise and reconnect with them after the performance.  

One of the things we wanted to do was have an ice cream. The tub with the Finnish version of M and Ms is the OHs. The cone is mine. I think the bottom scoop is vanilla. I know the top scoop is raspberry and licorice because I was desperate to try it as soon as I saw it on the menu, and I am here to tell you it was absolutely one of the best flavours of ice cream ever. 

And then three pictures form the steamboat cruise itself. The view of the castle from the lake shows the 'tenting' that they put over the courtyard where the opera is performed; it's a fairly recent innovation and keeps the punters dry. 

I know I was very upfront about the group in a previous post but some of them were likeable. We shared a table with a very pleasant couple on the cruise and she offered to take a photo of us. Naturally we reciprocated. 

and here's a candidate for possibly the worst ever photo of a Lake Saimaa steamboat. I had to snap it as we were going aboard as we (the group) had arrived a trifle late and the skipper was not amused. I've also had to crop it to take out various random people and even more random limbs.  But you know, you can see it was a boat. 

We left to go into town as soon as we got off so we did not see the accident which befell one of our group just after she disembarked.  She was apparently watching a small child instead of her feet, possibly to make a remark about its behaviour, and fell or tripped over something on the jetty. Maybe  that rope that you can see in the photo. I'm not saying that falling over isn't horrible, because it is as I know from unfortunate personal experience, and it does leave you very shaken and she was a lone traveller so that makes it worse. Even allowing for all that I felt she did play it up a bit for the next couple of days, and quite honestly if they take you to the hospital, which they did, have you seen by doctors who check you over and give you painkillers and instructions on how to take them, which they did, and you then take only half the prescribed dose of painkiller because 'you don't know what it is' then perhaps you should expect to continue in pain for a few days.  Goodness knows, I'm always very reluctant to take painkillers and it's rare I self medicate with paracetamol, but when the doctors  tell me to take stuff and give me directions about how many and how often, even I fall into line. 

But let's not end on a negative. We had a lovely day; the cruise was breezy but not too chill, the sun shone all day, the craft and food market was really interesting, the ice cream was very very good, the shopping was enjoyable and the opera too. Almost perfect.