Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast. It's Tuesday the 3rd of March.

Travel Desk Tuesday, of course, and I'm talking to my excellent colleague global travel editor, Annabel Grossman, because she is back from a fantastic location, and I understand very, very wintering.

Yes, Simon, I just landed last night from 10 days in Finland.

And Finland is currently having one of what they believe is their best winters,

which means it is very, very cold, which is great because there's a lot of

snow, but also blue skies. It was cold, but not too cold if you have the right gear, and you

could really get that winter wonderland feel. Well, you talk about winter wonderland dark most

of the time, wasn't it? She was not, because I spent most of my time in the southeast. So I was mainly in

Helsinki and the surrounding areas and out towards the border with Russia in the east. So down

there, I think it got light at 8am and then didn't get dark until 5. So you've got 8 hours

of daylight. And then the thing is, Helsinki and that area does outdoors very well. But it also does hunkering down quite well. So when it gets dark, there are loads of lovely cafes and restaurants, cinemas and art galleries. So you can enjoy the darkness as well.

And let's talk about Helsinki, a beautiful city. You're not, if I may, particularly a city

break person, though. That's correct. And my original plan was to go to Helsinki, spend a

little bit of time there and then get out into the countryside, get out into the wilderness.

But Helsinki, I really fell for that city. I thought

it was wonderful. Because it was the winter, I thought it was going to be very quiet. And while it was

quite a not-too-touristy, again, the Finns aren't bothered by bad weather, and nor should we be.

So it felt quite alive. There was a lot going on. But it's also a very walkable city. I found

that I could get pretty much everywhere I wanted to by foot. And when I did want to go to the

outer neighbourhoods, the tram system was brilliant. So I felt that within a few days I'd got to know

the city quite well. I actually ended up staying a lot longer than I thought, just because I thought it was so wonderful.

Probably my number one highlight is the public library, which was a bit of a surprise for me.

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