We meet Santa in Rovaniemi

Has anyone missed that the Santa lives in Rovaniemi? And that you can meet him all year round in Rovaniemi? Santa Claus Village It was just too exciting to miss. The fact that it was mid-July didn't stop us; on top of that, it was much quieter here than it would be during the Christmas holidays.

The first thing you encounter when you enter the village is the small area with gingerbread houses. These are super cute little houses that you can borrow to use as a warming shelter during the winter, to eat food or simply to recover after the encounter with Santa gets too overwhelming. We started here with a gingerbread cake, of course!

The area isn’t as huge as you might think; instead, there are a number of houses with small shops and restaurants. However, not everything is open during the summer months. Of course, there are Christmas decorations everywhere, and wherever you go, you hear Christmas music in the background. One of the most fun places is the post office where you can send Christmas cards to your loved ones with a stamp from the North Pole. Here you can also see all the wish lists that children from all over the world have sent to Santa in the hope that their wishes will be granted.

The pole circle runs through the village and this too must of course be viewed. We went back and forth over the line a few times but actually didn’t notice any significant difference. 😀

The highlight of the Christmas house is of course the chance to meet Santa in person. We walked down a long corridor full of Christmas presents of all kinds before finally arriving at the door to the house of Santa. What a meeting it was, you can watch the video here. 🙂

After the meeting with Santa, we were completely overwhelmed, especially Henrik. 🙂 However, it turned out that we had an even more exciting encounter ahead of us. We chatted for a while with a woman who had worked in the Santa Village for a few years. She told us that she had moved from Italy to Rovaniemi. Somewhat surprised, I asked her why she had chosen to leave beautiful Italy for this remote place in the north of Finland. The Italian woman then told us that her whole life had been a dream, what she herself called, ”a simple elf life”. When she turned 40, she took the plunge and contacted Santa Claus Village to ask if they would like to have her. They must have been delighted, because here she was, seemingly content with her new life as the very special helper of Santa.

While you're in the area, why not take the opportunity to visit Arktikum, The Museum of Arctic Culture and Science is a museum and science center in central Rovaniemi. The museum is a mix of Arctic culture, nature, and history located in a grand building. Imagine sitting in the 172-meter-long light corridor as the sky is covered in northern lights.

Two completely different but exciting experiences in Rovaniemi, this small town north of the Arctic Circle. It’s not every day we travel this far north in our campervan, but we thought it was so much fun that we decided to come here anyway.