Biketour in Tampere (last year)

On the 11th of September, we arrived in Tampere. Our sleeping place was the social and art centre Hirvitalo. Tampere is a city surrounded by lakes, and on one of them, really close to Hirvitalo, some people had built a floating sauna with a glass roof from which you can see across the lake. The highlight was when we saw the northern lights over the lake while having a sauna. There was not much programme in Tampere. On the way to Tampere we slept next to a really freaky sculpture park in the middle of a forest. Some of us…

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Biketour in Turku (last year)

On the 4th of September, we arrived in Turku. Our main base was Pyöräpaja Vapaa Ratas, a bike workshop that sells old bike parts and fixed-up bikes on a regular bike flea market (from the money, the rent is paid) and where people can also come to fix their bikes or have them fixed. It is in Aurinkotehdas, an old bicycle factory that is now used for different social projects, such as an Emmaus second-hand shop. We were really warmly welcomed, and many people had heard from or even participated in the Biketour that cycled to the Ecotopia Gathering close…

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Biketour at Livonsaari (last year)

From the 31st of August to the 2nd of September, the Biketour stayed at Livonsaari, a small village about 40 km west of Turku. In Livonsaari, many people try to live together in a more ecological and communal way. There are many different initiatives by different individuals in the village, such as a baker baking organic bread from locally produced wheat, someone building sustainable houses with a special technique using big logs, a community garden, and many people building their houses themselves out of wood. We helped the people in the village to dig some holes and so some garden…

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Biketour on Åland (last year)

After Stockholm, at the end of August 2015, we cycled north towards Kapellskär to ferry-hop towards Turku across the Åland archipelago. The Åland archipelago is a collections of literally hundreds of thousands of islands in the Baltic Sea between the Swedish and Finnish mainland, and it is known for its exceptionally beautiful landscape. Åland belongs to Finland, but its official language is Swedish. Only people who have family there are allowed to move there to not overcrowd it, and transit traffic is discouraged, so it doesn’t feel very touristic and there is a lot of space, nature and quietness. It…

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