map of Finland

Let's move back to Finland.. I received this very cool map card from the lovely Liisa in Finland. It's always a joy to receive mail from her and this card is no exception.



This is not your typical map of Finland - as you can see, none of the major towns are marked on it, apart from Helsinki and Tampere. Instead there are a bunch of small towns. This card is actually an ad for the 'Kipa' book shop chain. They have shops in these smaller towns as a bigger, more conventional book shop wouldn't really work in these places. I would probably be pretty frustrated if I was stuck living in one of these places as I love to visit book shops and these small ones are, well, a bit *too* small for me. But at least they're something.

The card is illustrated by Marjaliisa Pitkäranta. I remember her illustrations from my childhood, she's pretty well-known in Finland.



Liisa got this card mailed from Åland, yay! I love seeing stamps from there as so many of them are so pretty. This one is extra special - it's from the Europa series from last year. I've been wanting this stamp ever since I saw it, I'm sooo excited to finally have it! Thank you, Liisa!