Lunch with Mum

We have enjoyed amazingly sunny weathers here in Turku since I came home. It being only March the huge light bulb up there somewhere is a rare phenomenon in these latitudes! It's amazing what effect the first Spring Sun has on Finns: for a little while, they are all sooo full of joy! I love it. And honestly, how could you not be when you're in such a beautiful place as Turku bathing in the light and warmth.  

There are so many new cafés scattered all around the city centre and the first one I wanted to check out is Tiirikkala. It's in a gorgeous old house with two floors and a roof terrace, live band playing most days. I've read some reviews already and everybody's saying nothing but good things about the place.

So, Mum had a Monday off because she turned 50 so we decided to go for lunch in the most beautiful part of Turku: Vähätori. Right next to the Aura river and the Cathedral. But instead of going to Tiirikkala there, we went to a place next to it, Tårget, which had a more appealing lunch menu. Also a very beautiful building, ancient, and huge (even though you wouldn't think that from the outside). 

Terraces. A very global thing but which happens to rise beyond everything that is good in life when Spring arrives in Finland. It is a glorious day every year, the first day when you can survive a coffee on a terrace without freezing to death. And you usually don't get to do that much before May.

This year though, the terrace season took a head-start! It may seem a small thing to you but it really is rather wonderful. You just can't get it unless you've lived in Finland long enough.  

Turku has some of the ugliest buildings in Finland, thanks to our completely blind former decision-makers for the city (in my opinion they should be hung for having NO sense of style whatsoever). But thankfully it still has some extremely beautiful old stone and wood houses left that have been constructed and are used mostly as restaurants. I love the contrast between rough, old stone walls and modern, simple furniture. In the restaurant Tårget I especially like the floor; not clean and pristine but painted, honest concrete. In places the floor is made of glass with nothing but a couple-meter drop below and views of the oldest parts of the city. I really appreciate that those parts have been left so visible.

I do hope that one day Bratislava would get people to decide on the city matters who would understand and appreciate the value of a clean and good-looking (wanting for a better word) city. Walls covered in ugly graffiti (because they really are ugly, proper graffiti would be ok), streets with trash everywhere and old, once beautiful buildings crumbling in front of our eyes does not lift anyone's spirit. I should know.