4 April 2018. Friday.
Today was our last day in Rovaniemi! Our flight back to Helsinki
was pretty late in the evening so we had 1 last day to check out the most important attraction here - the Santa Claus Village!
I think this is one of the main attractions in Rovaniemi and Lapland, other than the Aurora of course. Google calls it an amusement park, but since they don't have rides or roller coasters I would say it's more of a tourist attraction than an amusement park.
Anyway, before that, we moved our stuff out of the Airbnb we were staying in and had lunch at the usual kebab place yet again!
Seems like we got more fries this time! 😋
After our yummy meal we took a cab to the Santa Claus Village because it wasn't accessible since it was beside a highway. I think if you're on a tour they'd probably charter a bus. Anyway, the park is free entry so I guess the taxi fare was our "fee" to get in.
Here's a map of the entire village!
The place is fairly large, and they also have some rides there like the snowmobile, similar to the tours that were offered in the city by tour agencies. There was also a hotel there and various restaurants (which were all pretty expensive of course, since it's in a tourist attraction).
That's the hotel on the left. It was pretty sunny that day even though there's still snow around
We decided to take a stroll around the place and see if there was anything worth visiting because we didn't have much time anyway. We also had to check for available transportation from the Village to the airport (even though it was only 2 km away).
Our first stop was to the tour centre as we wanted to get more information on the available tours here, but I think the place was closed at the time.
But anyway, beside this building was Santa's main post office! I guess that's where all the letters that kids write go to when they ask for presents from Santa.
Sorry it's a little dark but on the different panels on this wooden structure it actually says which direction various cities are in and how far away they are! For example, New Delhi 5413 km, I'm not sure how accurate it is though but if Santa uses it it must be correct, right.? 🤔
Before we walked around more, we visited the tourist information centre. Apparently, there's a bus we could take from here that goes straight to the airport about 2 stops away, yay! We noted down the timing of the bus before heading on our way. 
We wanted to find a place where we could lock our stuff but unfortunately, they didn't have lockers there so we had to lug everything around all day. I guess they really wanted people to stay at the hotel. Dang.
This was the main building in the park! And apparently it's where Santa stays!
We were pretty excited to go in, but not before taking a photo with the giant snowman! ⛄
He doesn't look too happy about the sun coming out. I feel you man 🙁
Here's a video of us entering the building for the first time!
I'm not sure if you caught it but there was a pathway to a mysterious dark door beside the gift shop so naturally, we went to check it out.
Inside we got to walk through Santa's cottage/workshop and there were various exhibits about the arctic circle and Santa Claus! (maybe explaining why he's Finnish?)
Santa's wish list!
At the end of the walk you could queue up to take a picture with Santa himself! But it's very expensive. Hey man, Santa's gotta have money to pay his elves and buy treats for his reindeer.
You could also send a letter to someone from Santa Claus' Village! I'm not sure when it would arrive though.
After that we explored the gift shop for a while. There was so much Christmas themed stuff! Even in April! I guess in Santa Claus' Village it's always Christmas time. 🎄
We decided to check out the hotel to ask if they could hold our stuff for awhile (and to use the washroom).
The hotel even had its own custom-made van!
The lobby of the hotel was so grand but the fireplace made it pretty cozy and homely. 😌
Anyway, this post is pretty long already so I'll finish this day another post! Stay tuned!
Thanks for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://tacocat.vornix.blog/2018/10/21/tacocats-travels-finland-12-visiting-santas-village-%f0%9f%8e%85/
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