The next day we continued our journey northward, and after waiting almost 3 hours for the car ferry (one of the two ferries was broken) we where finally on the island which Nordkapp lies on. Another 40 kilometers of driving through sleet, and eventually snow, brought us to the top of the world (or at least the top of Europe). Quite an incredible place, in the middle of nowhere, overlooking the arctic ocean. We ate a delicious dinner in the restaurant, seafood of course. The modern building on the site, which includes a tunnel into a man made cave that overlooks the sea, includes just one room as far as lodging goes. I decided that if and when I ever get married, surely I must stay at Nordkapp’s honeymoon suite, a mere $500 a night buys you this round room with 360 degree view of the area and a Jacuzzi. We ended up staying on the island, renting a cabin in the worlds most northerly campground in a fishing village called Kirkeport.

The next day we drove southward to Karasjok, near the Norwegian - Finnish border. We actually drove into Finland for a bit, taking a couple hours to hike through a nature trail that showed off some of the areas most beautiful features.

The next day we made our way back to Alta, where we stopped for a couple of hours to view the ancient rock carvings by the water. The weather couldn’t have been any better, which was promising since we where hoping to view the midnight sun in Tromso that evening. After a long and scenic day of driving, we finally arrived in Tromso, only to find that all rooms and cabins where already booked solid. We managed to secure a room in a guesthouse about a half hour outside of town, and quickly drove back to Tromso and took the aerial tramway to the top of the mountain. After a late dinner at the top of the tramway, we climbed even higher, making it to the top just at the stroke of midnight.

So, we where finally going to try to make it to Tallinn, Estonia today. Our plans had been downsized quite a bit from the original plan of spending a night there. Today, it turned out to be difficult to even go there for a day. The regular ferries where to slow, taking about 3 or 4 hours each way, and the last jet-foils had already left. After much confusion (neither the hotel or the city tourist office had much information), we finally determined that a smaller Estonian company also ran jet-foils, and that we would be able to spend about 3 ½ hours in Tallinn. Better than nothing, so we went for it. As we approached Tallinn, the beautiful weather started to change. After about an hour of sightseeing by foot, a sudden thunderstorm hit, and a friendly Russian woman (Tallinn is about half Russian, half Estonian in terms of population) invited us into her stairwell during the downpour. The rain didn’t stop, so we went across the street to a pub and grabbed a beer. Eventually we ran out of time, since we had to catch the jet-foil back to Helsinki, so we had to make a very wet run for it through the city. Back on the other side of the Baltic, the weather was still nice.