Tulli & Tammelantori

 Tulli & Tammelantori

Tulli is on the other side of Tampere from us.  During our visit here last year we spent a lot of our time at Tulli – it’s where the University is, and the kids fell in love with the park here.  This trip we’ve had more fun exploring other parts of Tampere, but we still go to Tulli on occasion. 

If you go the other way from the tram stop – away from Tulli – you come to Tammelantori, Tampere’s first and oldest open air market.  Today it’s mostly got a bunch of outdoor food trucks and booths.  It’s always lively.  This is where I tried the mustamakkara for the first (and only) time.  

It reminded me the most of meat loaf.  Traditionally it is served with lingonberry jam, and a tall glass of milk.  I did the jam, but as a tourist I opted for coke instead.  It was all okay.  If I were offered another one, I would eat it.  But I wouldn’t be heartbroken if that never happens.

Up the street from Tammelantori is a park that we’ve taken to calling treehouse park.  You can see why from the picture.  It is one of dozens of innovative, beautiful, fun parks in Tampere.

When we first got to Tampere this year, Tulli was one of our very first stops.  We went hoping to go to Duck Park (Sorapuisto).  

Duck Park was our first introduction to how awesome Finnish parks are last year.  It of course has a wooden carving of a duck, 

but also several great pieces of playground equipment, including this spinning teeter totter.  

Outside the park is a serene lake we like to walk around.  There’s ironically no sign of actual ducks at the park.  But perhaps once upon a time there were.  There are however some cages with fantastically exotic chickens.

When we arrived at Tulli on that first day we played for a few minutes but noticed that there was some event happening nearby.  So we walked over and found a giant community yard sale and a festival filled with about twenty bounce houses.  We browsed the tables and blankets.  The kids each bought a stuffie, and we bought a couple of board games (which felt like necessary purchases until we learned about the libraries two days later).  Then we bought the kids wristbands to play at the bounce house park.  

They played there for about three hours or so on a beautiful, warm August evening.  

We got treats and drinks and enjoyed ourselves.  It felt like such a wholesome, Finnish event. 

Tulli is also home to the world famous Moomin Museum (which is an entirely separate entity from Moominworld, don’t get it twisted).  

It’s a little bit expensive.  We went once last year, and twice this year.  It is mostly focused on the books.  It has various exhibits providing overviews of each of the books, along with interesting background or “behind the scenes” information.  The real centerpieces are various dioramas, tableaus, models, and other “scenes” depicting the events of the book.  

Many were created by the author Tove Jannson and her longtime girlfriend.  All have the quintessential Finnish painstaking attention to detail.

The main event is a huge Moomin house with a beautifully eclectic mix of architectural details.  My favorite part is Moominpapa’s room, which looks like the cabin of an old sailing ship.  

Each of the shingle’s on the roof is an actual tiny wooden shingle.  Some of the tableaus that are water or cave themed are inlaid in the floor.  I kept thinking how cool it would be if we did this with other beloved media – like the Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars.  It got me thinking about building a Star Trek room in our house with tableaus of various episodes, all set around a giant Star Trek Enterprise with windows you could peek in to see crewmembers hard at work, and Captain Picard enjoying a cup of earl grey tea at his desk.

Amy’s super stoked about it.

Hei Hei