After 25 years I returned to Hanko, the southernmost town in Finland. I took a day trip to Hanko on July 7, 2000 when I lived in Finland that summer. This was Mark’s first time there. We took the train to Karis then transferred south. We stopped into the tourist office and picked up a free architectural guide to the town. The warmest spots during our trip to Finland were in Hanko, and (not really a surprise as I had been there before in the summer) Rovaniemi. Yet throughout Finland, the summer weather means wearing jackets one moment then shedding them the next. Cloud cover can send an instant chill through the air yet a clear sky can mean blazing sun. My nose got a bit of a burn after this side trip. We are standing next to the water tower:
Hotel Regatta:
Overview of Hanko harbour:
Boats in Hanko harbour:
The old crane from Hanko harbour:
Bulevardi 18:
We walked along Appelgrenintie to see all the villas. We noticed this interesting car in front of Villa Thalatta:
A camper with this licence plate drove past us and I hoped I would see it parked nearby so I could get a picture of it. Fortunately it did park up ahead. It appears to be an old Finnish plate, predating the new style with EU flag and FIN code on the left side. Finnish plates have three letters followed by three numbers, so this reads III 112. I had seen several of these older plates without the EU markers during my trip. Twenty-five years later and I come this close to finding III 111:
Villa Tellina:
Villa Elisabeth:
Villa Margita:
Villa Maija:
Villa d’Angleterre:
I enjoyed seeing all the villas again because I didn’t take any pictures of them 25 years ago. We took a rest by the casino and looked towards the beach. Although the building was empty inside, its former use was as a casino and it is still called that:
Villa Tita-Maria:
I couldn’t find a name for this villa so it’s probably a private house:
Mark wanted to see some industrial architecture so we walked to the old Kex biscuit factory then up Lähteentie to the Printal and Filterpak complex, originally designed by Viljo Revell. We walked back to the train station along Kappelisatamantie.
Interesting supports on this building on Halmstadinkatu:
We left by 3:40 in order to get back to Helsinki in time to eat dinner then head down to Olympiastadion for Ultra Bra’s second concert.