Hello and welcome to the Travel Diaries podcast.

I'm your host, journalist Holly Rubinstein, and on today's destination special, we are embarking on a journey to the far north of Europe.

To a place of summer midnight sun and the magical northern lights of the

winter. The land of a thousand lakes, a place where saunas are as common as cafes. And with

just a few days to go until Christmas, I imagine it's a hive of activity given that lapland in

the north of the country is the home of Santa Claus and

his elves. Of course, I'm talking about Fantastic Finland. And I'm joined by two wonderful guests

today to help bring this diverse and beautiful country to life. First, we'll hear from the actress

Tracy Ann Oberman. You'll know Tracy Ann from shows like EastEnders, Friday night dinner,

It's a Sin and Ridley Road, as well as her acclaimed work on the stage. And she has a special

connection to Finland, which she'll tell us all about when she shares her Finnish travel

diaries coming up. And then we're joined by Finland destination expert and food and travel writer

Brie Graham, who has travelled extensively around the country and shares so many brilliant

different recommendations and tips for places to visit, stay, eat and what to bring home

in your suitcase. So let's get started in Helsinki, the capital, with Tracy Ann Oberman.

Tracy Ann Oberman, welcome to the Travel Diaries podcast and to this fantastic Finland destination special. How are you?

Oh, I'm really well and I'm really happy to be talking about Finland because I love it so much.

So I'm always delighted to talk about my experience of being there at every opportunity.

So let's magic ourselves there.

Let's. So it was actually your work on another kind of film project that first introduced you to Finland.

Yes, it was.

I've always been a Moomin fan and I was very lucky because I was asked to play Moomin Mama

...