Hotelli Levitunturi

Moloslaki

by sinoda

Mountains or (as a Swiss I call them = ] ) hills are called tunturi in finnish Lapland. Do distinguish between tunturi and vaara, which is another name for a hill. A tunturi however is mostly bald on top - wil say has no trees on its mostly flat "peak".

Hike onto Moloslaki and look towards north - northeast. There you will see three nice tunturis: Pyhätunturi, Kätkätunturi and Levitunturi.

Beautiful Magical Levi in Lapland

by originalribenababy

"A most magical place"

My fiance and I decided we were going to try something different for our 2008 trip away. He wanted me to try skking for the first time and I just wanted to find somehwere magical and different to visit from the normal ski resorts, with something for us to do just in case I not could manage to ski! Levi resort in Finalnd seemed a great compromise.

Levi is the name given to the area surrounding the 510 meter high Levitunturi (the Levi fell). The village of Sirkka lies at the bottom of the Levi fell. We got a whole load of information before we went from the Levi website and would highly recommend it. The site even has a live webcam feed from some of the slopes which got us really excited before we went.

The skiing is great for beginners like myself....although being total beginers my fiance insisted he knew where he was going and lead me up to the top of the black slopes near our hotel on our first day.....I was so humiliated when I had to get them to bring me back down on the ski lift! Althought the prospect of doing my first ever skiing down a hill like that did make me cry a little!! Word of warning for any total newbies like me, catch the free ski bus from the bus stop at the bottom of the big slope in Levi centre and it will take you round the other side of the fell where the slopes are basic, but also very scenic.

"Skiing catsatrophies!!"

As I mentioned it was my first ever ski experience so I was pretty wary, I have no natural balance at all! After the embarassment of coming back down on the ski lift as all watched we eventually clawed our way up another hill and found a red slope, again not an easy one to start on! There were many falls on my first day and I was begining to get fed up so we decided we would head back to our hotel.

Once again my fiance insisted there must not be a bus back to our hotel so we set off waking what we thought was a path....which turned out to be a 2.5km cross counrty skiing route....carrying our skis mostly and dying in our ski boots! We came close to giving up and burying ourselves in the snow!!

Things did pick up though and I begun to get the hang of it i.e. I began to fall over less and hit fewer people! I actually found myself really enjoying it in the end!

Between my eyebrows freezing as we were dragged to the top of ski runs, freaking out when I went a bit off course and ended up on a steeper slope than I had anticipated, and actually enjoying myself, we both experienced something that will stay with me as being a bit special.

Half way down a slope I heard Gary wipe out behind me. We were the only two people there so I stopped....clumsily..... and looked round to see what had happened.

Gary had stopped to watch two wild reindeer just off the slope. We got really close and some great pictures. To the Finnish they may be as common as cows are to us but I felt really special to be seeing them in the wild and not on a contrived 'reindeer safari' experience.

"Reindeer Games"

During the trip besides the skiing we took in pletny of time in the sauna and had a finnish massage which made me giggle when my massuse started to jiggle me! Not something I have come across in massage technique until then!

We tried snow mobiling which I wouldn't recommend.

We drove our skidoos down to the snow village, Lannino but our guide drove too fast dispite advising us all we must not go over the speed limit, he got us lost and then whe the skiddo tipped over on me as we has been asked to stop on some uneven ice he was more concerned that we had damaged the perspex windowscreen than the fact that my leg might have broken!

It shook me up alot and I didn't ebjoy it after that dispite us having 3/4 of the journey left to do. If you are going to do this activity make sure your travel insurance will cover any damages, that piece of perspex costs us almost our whole holiday spending fund which put a bit of a downer on things :(

On our last day in Levi we got chance to go to the riendeer racing which was fun, its not a high adrenaline sport and it all seems to be over pretty quickly but it was still fun being out on the frozen lake doing something totally different to back home.

My time in Levi was really magical for the perfect snow covered scenery and idyllic peace, and it has certainly made me less dramatic when we get the odd foot of snow back home.....if it it isn't -15 now I don't even think its worth putting me wellys on :)