RETURNING HOME TO ESPOO

AFTER

WALKING AROUND DOWNTOWN TAMPERE

We had a few hours before we needed to head back to Espoo, so with the car parked at the hotel parking (and with their permission to leave it there while we walked around) we decided to go exploring the sights of Tampere......and so glad we did!

This 'hidden' lion was on the steps leading up to a museum or some type of building. There was so much snow there.....and so pretty......

We 'found' the store-front building where the TAMPERE BRANCH met when Wayne was a young missionary here some 46 years ago....he remembered it well. Tampere was his 1st area when he arrived to Finland. Amazing that just last week a very beautiful, large 3-story building with state-of-the-art equipment was dedicated for the 2-wards and stake center!! Wonderful to see the growth in this area!!

There is a river that divides the city.....and there are a number of bridges that criss-cross back and forth. We walked on quite a few of them.

This one was quite interesting with all of the LOCKS fastened to the fence. We were not quite sure why....but there were hundreds of them!

This was the TUOMIOKIRKKO which I really wanted to see the inside of! It is very large and very beautiful inside!!

It has 3 ORIGINAL PAINTINGS that we had seen copies of at the ATENENUM ART MUSEUM in downtown Helsinki. Here are two of them......above: "The Resurrection" which is very large and is in the front of the chapel. Below: "The Wounded Angel" which is smaller and found in the upstairs area. The lady who works there was very kind and took us up there so we could see it better!! KIITOS PALJON!!

As we were walking around downtown and exploring, Wayne wanted to get a closer look at the river......and we 'found' a statue there as well......

the PROBLEM was that there were no real paths made to get there at this part. We had to make our own 'path'. The snow was very deep.....

Cool statue......but,

I had a little trouble getting back out to the real path!! It reminded me of the commercial which says......"Help, I have fallen and can't get up!" I felt like that because it was just hard to move in it!! It was funny.....and the snow was so soft to fall in!!

On our drive back to Espoo we went past HÄMMENLINNA and the beautiful castle off in the distance!

This week at the temple: TAMPERE STAKE!! How appropriate since we were just there!