An Overnight Stay in the Smallest Town in Finland

Yesterday (Sunday), we took the 4-hour ferry ride from Umea, Sweden to Vassa, Finland. After spending the night in Vassa – a city with a population of 66,000 – we cycled 66 miles today to Kaskinen, where we're spending the night. Kaskinen, a town with about 1,400 inhabitants, is the smallest municipality in Finland with a town status.

The region of Finland that we're in has a substantial Swedish minority. For example, each of Vassa and Kaskinen is about 25% Swedish. The Swedish influence is very easy to see. All signs in the region are bilingual Finnish/Swedish. The Swedish love of classic American cars is mirrored here, as evidenced by the fact that there were numerous classic cars on our ferry ride, returning to Finland after having participated in the Umea classic car extravaganza. We even had lunch today at a pizza/kabab joint in a Finnish town whose population is 88% Swedish, similar to most of our lunches during our two weeks in Sweden.

On our ride today, we met up with a 50-person group doing a 6-day bike ride from Vassa to Helsinki on a route similar to ours. The ride has two organizers: an American from Kansas and a Finn. They generously offered to carry our saddlebags in their sag wagon and to have us share in their ample supply of beer (also in the sag wagon), but we declined the offer: we enjoy the challenge of being self-sufficient and neither of us is a beer drinker.

Waiting in line for the Umea-Vaasa ferry together with an old Cadillac

An even older Cadillac in line for the ferry

Cycling out of Vaasa, Finland

Carol riding with bike tour organizers we met up with on our ride today

If you're free on July 20 and love classic American cars, here's the place to be

Finnish countryside

Sign entering Kaskinen, announcing it as Finland's smallest town

Biking down one of the few streets in Kaskinen

Our lodging in Kaskinen (?? the smallest hotel in Finland)