Vin parked in Kemi Marina – Kemi air cam

Kemi, situated in Sea Lapland, in the centre of the Bothnian Arc. The sheltered Kemi Guest Marina is located at a beautiful spot, just a few hundred metres from the city centre. The local yacht clubs with their restaurants, saunas, and other services provide a pleasant variety of options for people strolling along the waters edge. We can access wifi from the motorhome, so this morning we took the opportunity to get a few quotes and get the ball rolling on the annual insurance etc.

After a morning surfing the web to the sound of waves lapping in to the marina, we went for a walk around Kemi. Rather a nice walk in the blistering sun and albeit Kemi does not have loads to look at it doesn’t have swarms of mosquitos.

The town in particular has been gaining an international reputation for tourism, in part due to the Snow Castle that is built here every winter since 1996 and is the largest snow building in the world. As we walked around the town I asked Craig where the castle is located. His remark was classic, “down the grid, its melted”. The pictures for the ice castle look fantastic and must admit, we would definitely visit if it was winter time.

This building caught our attention

The streets of Kemi are set out in a grid fashion so it is easy to navigate your way around. The wide streets have a few interesting buildings but mainly residential apartment blocks. A tootle over to the church with well presented gardens and a war memorial. We did attempt to go ini the church but it was shut…silly us, we had forgot to alter the clocks when we entered Finland by 1 hour.

As we walked back, we could sed plumes of smoke from the port of Kemi. It is situated at the mouth of the Kemikoji River, is the transit point for the many thousands of logs that are felled in Lapland, floated downriver, and either loaded onto seagoing barges or transformed into lumber and paper products onsite.

The sun was still shining and it was just one of those lovely summer days. We moved Vin to the end of the pier, so we could have an unspoilt view of the water. Then we went to the pub. Craig splashed the cash and we had a lovely evening sipping beer, eating pancakes and enjoying a beautiful sunset. Craig summed today up quite nicely…it might not have majestic mountains, it might not have fantastic fjords but sometimes just enough is perfect.

First sunset in months

Our wild camping spot tonight Kemi marina but today we moved a few feet to the end of the pier.

Wild Camping GPS position N065.730274 E024.552406

Route: Kemi

Weather: Low 20, High 35 heatwave continues