A cafe at the end of the world

WRITING AND PHOTOS BY MONIKA CSAPO

Well not really, just at the junction of two islands, Vallisaari and Kuninkaansaari. The biggest mistake what most people do when visiting the North for the first time is not knowing that Finland and other Nordic countries are much more of a lifestyle than a sum of places you can visit. You need time and patience and when you move with open eyes the places around you will open up to you.

Helsinki is a very different face of Finland than the typical Finnish countryside but also here when you know where to go you can experience "real Finnish-ness" and enjoy a getaway in one of the forests, by the sea or on one of the surrounding islands. In the countryside if you are lucky you can go in summer to the cottage at weekends and sit by the lake doing nothing but reading newspapers. Or fish a bit, go to the sauna and barbeque with the family. Wash the dishes after lunch, then take coffee with some cookies and continue doing nothing again. It might not sound too interesting but nothing calms you down more than a good mökki-holiday.

There is something beautiful in it that even in the capital of high-tech Finland you can take a boat from the centre what brings you to the islands where after a ten-fifteen minute walk you sit at a bay where are hardly any people around you. Smaller groups pass by sometimes but there is not a disturbing crowd. Even like this, in the middle of nowhere there are two cafes and a bar serving visitors discretely but efficiently in summer- two of them belonging to Epic Food Co displaying a really cool minimalistic Scandinvian signature style. In the small cafe shop you can buy rainponchos with photos of typical old brick builings to be found on the islands or photo books about the archipelago which can be nice local presents or memories from the trip. There is ice cream, beer, coffee, some food- so it is also ideal for meeting with friends or having a date.

If you need some peace you can sit in one of the yellow sunchairs by the shore for a while, take in the sun and enjoy the view. All this for a bit over ten euros, away from everything.


- i wrote this post after rewatching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations episode of the Azores. I still can not believe that he is gone and exactly in that episode there was a sentence what shook me so deep in regard of what happened. I am so thankful that inspiring people like him do exist, he was a person who gave so much to the travel community and the world. I hope if there is some real meaning and promise behind the expression "rest in peace" he will be happy and at peace in the afterlife, or in whatever what is out there after life, after giving so much to others.-