Fiskars, so much more than scissors

Did you know you’ve probably used scissors from Finland? That’s right, chances are pretty good that at some point in your life you’ve used a pair of Fiskars scissors. You may not have noticed, unless you’re some kind of scissor aficionado, but you probably recognize the iconic orange handled scissors in the picture below. 

Well, we can now say that we’ve been to the birthplace of these scissors. I can’t say that I had heard of them, but they are familiar. Fiskars was just one of the stops on our trip back to Helsinki from Hanko. 

Before leaving Hanko we took a few minutes to to stop by the Baltic Market in the harbour. It was bigger than I expected given how quiet the town had been and also had the most eclectic combination of things for sale that I’ve ever seen at a parking lot market like this. You could get everything from clothes to sweets, other hot food, a new fur or even a new shower head.

From Hanko our next stop was Ekenäs. When we pulled in, it was grey and looked like some rain had just rolled through. Our visit consisted of a quick walk around the harbour area and a visit to another rather impressive playground.

They also had a pretty neat open water swimming area with a dock built almost surrounding it. Ella and I discussed testing out the diving board but agreed that we best not as we didn’t have our bathing suits on.

More than just scissors

Fiskars is definitely smaller than Ekenäs and you might struggle to come up with a list of the top 10 things to do. Actually I take that back, I just checked their rather elegant website and it looks like the nordic forging championships are taking place there this weekend so you know it’s a happening town. Either way we were pleasantly surprised by what a lovely village it was. While we didn’t have a lot of time there, with the nap time bomb ticking away, we had a chance to explore and have a very nice lunch. The town is laid out along a river with shops, hotels and cafes running between various parks. It would be a great place for a cafe stop on a long bike ride.

We had planned on just grabbing a quick snack to eat at the park but instead found ourselves eating some rather delicious food on a really nice patio.

Even more exciting, just across a small path there were some rather friendly sheep that Ella and I could go visit while we were waiting for our food to be delivered.

After all that excitement, you can blame Ella for getting an early jump on nap time during the last leg of our drive back to Helsinki.

Though the pouring rain that we left behind in Helsinki had come back to greet us, at least we had a beautiful apartment to greet us when we arrived. Not a bad place to plan the last few days of our stay in Finland.