Technically, this whole trip started in Edinburgh where I stayed the weekend with a friend I first met in Australia. After the obligatory review of old travel photographs and pleasant reminiscing we went out into the heart of the Fringe Festival. I've only ever been to Edinburgh during the festival when the city is overrun with tourists and every civic space is turned into a theatre or music venue. Once again the standard is high and the four separate shows we saw over the weekend were excellent.

Helsinki is the most Northerly capital in Europe and the perfect place to start the trip as is makes for a nice vertical drop down the map to Athens. It's also very cheap to fly there from the UK.

Travelling from Edinburgh to Helsinki via a stop in Stanstead took the whole day but even arriving at 10pm in the evening it was still light enough to wander around the city. I took a tram from the centre of town to the hostel which I had, unusually for me, pre-booked. The hostel is part of the original Olympic stadium built for the 1952 Games and the accommodation is that provided for the visiting athletes. Not a great deal of modernisation has happened since then but despite the worn furniture and faded decor it was obvious just how much of an achievement it was for such a small city to host the games.

The track and field facilities are now used by schools which are probably turning out GB beating competitors as we speak. Feeling inspired by the setting I went for a few runs around the stadium grounds on the purpose built jogging track.

The Finns are not renowned for being very outgoing socially and the atmosphere in the dormitory was quiet and stilted. Apparently, this is the situation until the beer and Vodka comes out when everything changes and friends for life are made. The trouble with staying in a cheap hostel is that the typical young traveller hasn't got the money to spend on drinking, particularly at the high Finnish prices. I resorted to going to the cinema on a couple of evenings and was surprised that even a large Hollywood film released the day before didn't fill more than a third of the seats. Obviously the Finns have more active and healthy things to do with their evenings.

Helsinki city centre is compact and attractive, filled with trams, cyclists and roller-bladers. Built in a Russian architectural style it has often been used for location filming when access to Russia was more problematic than it is today. The well preserved historical buildings are in clear contrast to the hi-tech population and businesses. Finland excels in the field of communications which is something its people are extremely proud of, evident in the amount of mobile phone usage on the street.

Most guide books recommend only a couple of days in Helsinki but as I wasn't due to leave for Russia until the end of the week I decided to make an excursion to Turku, the second largest city in Finland and the former capital. The trains in Finland are typically fast, efficient and comfortable and I got the feeling that this trip will really reveal the shortcomings of our own rail network.

Turku is known for its large medieval castle which has grown steadily over the last 800 years, each ruler adding their own extensions and annexes to the small fortified core. The castle was virtually deserted when I walked around with just a few authentically dressed guides sitting in the rooms looking bored. I had a quick walk around the centre and then had a swim in Turkus outdoor 50m pool before I left, something you don't get the chance to do very often back home.

A later excursion took me to Soumolina, an island fortress just a short ferry ride from Helsinki. There is still a small community living on this picturesque island who enjoy a lifestyle which has hardly changed in the past few hundred years - with the exception of mobile phones and pagers.

Finland at first glance really seems to be the ideal place to live. Organised, modern and clean with the weather in the summer sunnier and hotter than in the UK. Its only through reading that you are made aware of just how things change in the winter when there only a few hours of daylight and bitterly cold temperatures. Along with Sweden the Finns have the highest rate of suicide in the world, probably caused by these relentless dark winters. So now you know what time of year to go.