"Juhannus - Midsummer on Seurasaari" a Helsinki Travel Page by sabsi

We spent Midsummer Eve on Seurasaari, an island in Helsinki - this year. It's where the official Juhannus celebrations take place every year.

At around 8 we met at the bridge to Seurasaari. The weather was beautiful and in our bags we had everything we need - food, drinks, mats and mosquito repellent. (which didn't quite help actually. I got my first ever Finnish mosquito bite that night ;)

Seurasaari is normally an Open-Air Museum showing the traditional Finnish way of life, hence you will see quite a few nice or funny buildings on your way across the island.

Legend says that if a girl puts seven different flowers under her pillow in midsummer night she will dream of her future husband. Of course we had to try this and here you can see Bea counting the flowers she had picked. I am not going to tell you who I dreamt of that night tho ;)

I loved watching the kids playing on the playground. Here you can see their tug of war ;-) I died laughing about the wild girl with her girdle of flowers!

This lil one is a trendsetter already. He is wearing the typical Finnish bandana style of this year ;-)

Every Juhannus eve one couple gets married on the island. They passed by us and everybody cheered. I wonder who picks who is allowed to get married?

The first bonfires were lit at around 9.30. They were rather small and as it wasn't dark yet they don't really look impressive. But being there it was rather impressive as everyone was singing Finnish folk songs while they were burning. It was absolutely beautiful. A real Finland experience!

Then a churchboat appears with the wedding couple aboard. They are on their way to bonfire rock where they will light the main bonfire. People were still singing, we still hadn't found the right lyrics to the songs....

This is the main bonfire which burns down while the official ceremony ends. Of course the people were still singing....

We had found some "seats" on a rock near the water to watch the whole ceremony. However, it wasn't very comfortable there. I was sliding down all the time and my feet were numb about every 5 minutes ;-) I was happy when the fires were out so that we could go somewhere else really.

We went to the main dancing area where people were dancing along to Finnish polka and tango music. It was wonderful to watch all the people enjoying themselves. We also did some studies on the different dace styles here. This picture was taked about midnight by the way. Isn't it incredible how bright it was still? To be honest it looks brighter than it was by the way ;-)

These pics were taken on our way home on the bridge back to the mainland. What a beautiful sky it was!!! The colours and the brightness were wonderful!!!