Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Shopping tour in old Savonlinna

It's sunny day in Savonlinna, birds are singing, sun is shining and town is full of tourists. What should I do?

Here is my suggestion, If you don't want to go to crowded city you should go to old part of Savonlinna. Old part of Savonlinna is located near in Olavinlinna. In Old Savonlinna you can find lovely little boutiques in beautiful surrounding. There you can do wonderful purchases and buy the best souvenirs.

Here is my shopping tour in old Savonlinna! 

First I went to lovely shop called Saimatalon Kauppa. I think Saimatalon Kauppa is full of beautiful things, like you can see in the pictures below!







Entrepreneur Pirjo Laukkanen-Konsti says that Saimatalon Kauppa is idyllic and traditional giftshop. Saimatalon kauppa has been in Savonlinna 23 years. In opera time Saimatalon Kauppa openes ten a clock in the morning and closes around eleven a clock in the evening.

Next I went to Karin Lilja. For example you can buy there blankets wich you can have in five different sizes and 40 different colors, high quality and individual jewelry from Italy, Graphic made by Taru Innanen who is from Savonlinna, Individual carpets wich are made of naturematerials, bed sheets and pillowcovers made of linen. Karin Lilja also helps you with decoration.


Just next to Karin Lilja is studio Marja Putus. Marja Putus mades Clothes from naturematerials, mainly from wool and linen.

You can buy these clothes also from England and all over the Finland.

Marja Putus and few of her workers design the clothes here in Savonlinna. Savonlinna is also the main place of Studio Marja Putus.









This Stripe scarf is made of silk and its a classic. Marja Putus kniths about ten of these in a year.

Just behind the Marja Putus and Karin Lilja you can find shop full of colorful clothes. This shop is Ateljee Kaisa Turtiainen.






When I walked in to Ateljee Kaisa Turtiainen I just had to smile. Shop is full of colorful, funny and crazy clothes and accessories for women. Children can find there lovely and cute soft toys. 

Next to Ateljee Kaisa Turtiainen is shop called Ranta Tylli & Taidekirjan sitomo. Like the name shows  in this shop you can find two different entrepreneurs. These two different entrepreneurs are Tytti Wasenius and Tuula Kärkkäinen.

Ranta Tylli wich is company of Tytti Wasenius is designcompany wich sells mainly knitted textiles and boards made of photographs.

Company of Tuula Kähkönen is Kirjansitomo (bookbindery). From Tuula Kähkönen you can order unique books, photoalbums and maps.







Before I went to next shop I had to rest a littlebit. I stopped in lovely cafe over Saimatalon Kauppa it is called Kahvila Saima. 

Kahvila Saima is idyllic cafe for people of all ages. You can find there food for little or big hungry. As you can see in the pictures, walls of the Saimatalon Kahvila have been covered with beautiful art. There is exhibition wich changes every month.






When I had some rest I went to my last target. Shop named Putka. Putka is shop where eight different operators teams up during the summer. The eight different operators are MyBee Virtanen, RunoDesign,  Taikatuu, Raitavaara, Tuakon Takomo, IPIKDesign, Aapiste and Alati Jewelry.

There you can buy different kind of products wich you can easily mix and mach however you want. 













Here was my shopping tour, now you just have to choise your favourite shops to visit or maybe you have time to go all of the lovely places !

Have a nice shopping day in old Savonlinna :) !

Monday, July 15, 2013

The forest berries are getting ready :)

Summer and autumn are so nice times in Finnish nature, because you can finally, after a long winter, pick up delicious and fresh berries directly from the forest! The first berry is a wild strawberry - and of course a cultivated strawberry. If you are lucky, you might find wild strawberries until the middle of July! 

Wild strawberries are the first delicacy in Finnish forests and fields.
The second ones are the blueberries. And boy those are sooo good as well, you can not even notice how the time runs, when you'll find a good place to pick those up! And finally you will find out that your fingers and tongue are totally blue :). 

Delicious blueberries.
In Finland we eat blueberries also with milk!
From the finger you can see how much you have picked up the blueberries ;-)
In the same time with the blueberries, in July, you can also find the wild raspberries, which are so much sweeter than the cultivated ones.

Hmmmm... The wild raspberries.


The last ones, but not least ;-) are the lingonberries - our little bit sour, but so beautiful colored berry. Buy the way, if you see in any shop e.g. a lingonberry soap, I really do recommend that, because the smell of lingonberry is so good!

A lingonberry.
Finally comes also the mushrooms. The first ones are chantarelles already in July and then comes all the others.. We have so many good and eatable mushrooms, that I recommend to buy a guide for the mushrooms.
Mushrooms can be picked up mainly in August and September, but some are ready already in July! 
And finally, if you don't have enough time to pick up your own berries, our market place is an excellent place to buy some :)

You can also pick up the berries from our market place :)

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Two opposite restaurants from Savonlinna

Yesterday I was celebrating my brothers 18th birthday at lovely restaurant. This morning I got inspiration that maybe I should give a little presentation to you about two restaurants from Savonlinna that are total opposites. 

So the restaurants I want to introduce to you are Best Western Spa Hotel Casino and Hotel Hospitz. The difference between these two restaurants is that The Best Western Spa Hotel Casino is more sophisticated than Hospitz. In Best Western Spa Hotel Casino the portions are way smaller and servings more ornamental. But if you want to go eat a bit more in relaxed way, like in casual clothes and still have delicious really good food and go to fine restaurant Hospitz is the right choice. In Hospitz food is served as a buffet from big old boat. Food is really good and the boat, full of food looks so delicious that you just have to taste all different foods you can find on that food boat!

I think there is one matching thing in these two restaurants.. they both are very beautiful places. Now I let these pictures tell more!

First I show you the Hotel Hospitz.

Hospitz is beautiful inside and out!
In Following pictures you can see how the food is served from old wooden boat..

As you can see restaurant Hospitz is very beautiful place and the food just looks so delicious! Hospitz is actually a hotel and restaurant Hospitz is in the ground floor of the hotel. When it's not Opera time you can order this buffet meal or you can order some foods from the ordering restaurant. While the Opera time buffet is open three and half ours before the performance and then there is after the opera lighter night buffet. It could be good to reserve the table in advance in Opera time. 

These beautiful pictures from Hospitz are taken by Nina Kormano. These are taken at my dads 50th birthday party, so Hospitz is also a great place to organize different kind of partys !


Now we move on to the Restaurant Best Western Spa Hotel Casino. As you can guess this restaurant is also in the ground floor of the Hotel Best Western Spa Hotel Casino. 

Now let's move on to the pictures! I took these last night at my brothers 18th birthday what we went to celebrate in to this lovely restaurant !

When we came in to the restaurant there was a beautiful table waiting for us!
My mom and dad eated this starter. Beef Carpaccio.
My Brother and his girlfriend decided to eat mushroom risotto as a starter.
My sister eated this fish soup "buillabaisse" as a starter.
My starter was cold-smoked Salmon. It was so good and fresh!

Now on to the main courses!

I ate cockerel with this tasty risotto underneath it. It really was so good!!
My sister ate porc filet.
My brothers girlfriend ate the fish of the day which was this time Siika wich is white fish straight from Saimaa.
My brother ate entrecote.
My parents eated both this Bread of Amanda.

Now on to my favourities, Desserts! They say that women usually wates most the Dessert, and that's so true when it comes to me ;)!


As a true friend of chocolate I afcourse ate chocolate cake with strawberry sorbet. So did my mom and sister ! We all love chocolate..

Rest of the family (dad, brother and his girlfriend) ate blueberry milk. And they said it was really fresh summer tasting dessert! I don't have pic of blueberry milk because it was so good that when i started to take pictures it was already in somebodys tummy.. !

Restaurant Best Western Spa Hotel Casino is going to start with new Italian menu. Italian menu is starting 1.7. I can't wait to go to test the Italian menu!

I wish tasteful moments here in Savonlinna for you!