My Tampere trip – part one
My boyfriend lives and studies in Finland and I live and study in Denmark. Last we saw each other was Christmas, and when Corona came, all our plans had to be put on hold. My trip to Tampere was our first time together in 7½ month.
My trip to Tampere, Finland, actually started Sunday afternoon. After the kids went to their dad, I took an afternoon train to Copenhagen, about 4 hours away from my little town. It wasn’t required yet, but I wore a face mask the whole train ride, and it wasn’t bad at all other than a bit of a soreness above the ear. The train wasn’t packed at all, and even taking the metro in Copenhagen offered loads of space. I arrived no trouble at my sisters place to spend the night.

Early monday morning I took the metro to the airport. Since it was close to 7 in the morning I actually anticipated fuller trains, but again it wasn’t bad and most people wore face masks.
I arrived at the airport in good time and it was a weird feeling walking there. It was mostly empty, and most shops are still closed. Everyone was super friendly though, and the hygiene was in top. The airport had plenty of hand sanitizer placed everywhere, I also saw more cleaning personnel than normal.
A thing to note is that most European airports and airlines demand face masks to be worn all the time unless you’re drinking or eating. There was extra personal at the airport reminding people to wear masks, and big signs everywhere.

The boarding on the plane was done in order of seating and not as normal in order of priority, 1st class and so on. Every person got a small envelope containing a packet of hand sanitizer, a little pamphlet explaining the steps the airline took to keep everyone safe, and a little packet with a surface wipe, so you could clean the surfaces around you as an extra precaution. Everyone wore a face mask, and the flight went with no trouble.
When we landed in Finland, we had to leave the flight in reverse order as we boarded, and everyone had to remain seated until their row number was called, meaning people didn’t get to do the normal stand as fish in a barrel waiting to get out. It was really nice actually, and it went quite smooth.
The Helsinki airport was very quiet too. It’s normally a big layover hub for Asian tourists, so it was weird to see it so empty, but it did mean I managed to make an earlier train than planned, so big win.

The train ride was quite boring, as they often are, but luckily it was a fast train so it only took about 1½ hour. Again, face masks aren’t mandatory, but most wore them, and everything was clean. The info screens everywhere informed about good health etiquette and people were good at keeping a distance.

Overall it was such a good experience and at no point did I feel it was unsafe to travel despite corona. It is worth noting that both Denmark and Finland have fairly low number of cases per 100.000 people, which of course helps.
All in all my travel experience was super nice 🙂
Love, Tea
I really enjoyed reading your article!
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Thank you, and thank you for your comment.
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Thanks for sharing your experience of travelling during this time we are in at the moment, strange experince it must be 🙂
Nic | Nic’s Adventures & Bakes
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It was very strange but I actually preferred it to the overcrowding that normally occurs
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That must’ve been hard, but I’m glad you guys got to finally see each other! It is definitely a strange time! Thanks for sharing! ❤️
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Thank you for commenting
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Thanks, it’s much uplifting and looks like I supposed it would be..
Enjoy..
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It was super nice that there was so few people around 😛
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This was really interesting to read. I haven’t thought about going to another country yet but this has set my mind at ease a little.
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I probably wouldnt go on an actual holiday (say going to paris or london as I had talked about before corona with my boyfriend as a birthday trip) but it’s nice that when you have to travel it’s so controlled and easy and nice 🙂
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Such an interesting read, travelling at the moment seems really scary but this makes it seem alot easier and normal!!
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it was actually so easy, even more than normal. The fact that there was so few people made it really relaxed
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Such an interesting reading, love to see your posts
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Thank you 🙂
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I think those two countries took the out break seriously when it started spreading, which meant it kept it’s numbers low and as a result it’s generally more safer for stuff like traveling. I wouldn’t have the same trust in my country, the UK, who has been useless at handling it. I hope you had fun catching up with your partner
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Yeah, it does help that the outbreak is more under control, and I wouldn’t like going to say spain right now.
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I also already travelled during the lockdown. My husband and I are working different countries. My experience was different “to and from”. It was the beginning of July when I flew to Norway, everyone wore masks on the plane, every third seating row was empty (although we sat all together on the same rows). Some documents need to be filled, etc. But when coming back in the end of July, there was freedom everywhere. Even masks were not mandatory in the airport…
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I’m glad you finally got to see each other! It must have been awful having to wait for so long. It’s great that you felt safe on your travels and things went smoothly. I’m still not totally comfortable with travel but it’s to know that good measures are in place x
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Glad to hear your travel went so well 🙂 Although I am a little bit frustrated with Helsinki airport having absolutely no health measures in place to test and track arrivals. 70% of all corona cases in Finland come from those who’ve arrived from abroad, but nobody’s tracking it so we can’t do anything to control the situation. There’s only 1 city in Finland that’s taken action and stopped flights to countries where the situation is bad…. But 1 city won’t help much when the Helsinki airport is leaking like that
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I actually didn’t notice that in the Helsinki airport but to be fair I was hurrying to catch an earlier train 🙈 I know in Denmark we have a testing facility so people arriving can go be tested.
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