Chapter 3 - The Real Home of Santa

The Santa Claus Village is the best and major tourist spot in Lapland – Santa’s own hometown!

It is almost impossible not to cross the Arctic Circle in Rovaniemi. The Arctic Circle runs through the Santa Claus Village, located eight kilometres north of the city centre, where it is clearly marked. Santa Claus Village in Lapland is a popular place to cross the Arctic Circle: here the line is marked, and you can even get a certificate confirming the feat. At that moment, I felt I was the luckiest man in the world.

Arctic Circle Office

Santa village entrance

The Santa Village Park

The Santa Office

When the Lights are up

Santa Village at night

In front of Santa Office

We first stepped into the Santa Claus Office. The ambience was just fantastic and a real fairy-tale-like experience. We were ushered in by Santa’s hard-working and beautifully cute helpers, the elves. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw Santa seated inside on a wooden chair amidst a lot of gifts with his big fat belly resting on his lap! He is around 6.5F tall with a long real looking beard. He greeted us and gave us our seat. And had a little chit chat about the Xmas and arctic history. However, photos and videos are prohibited inside. For 45 Euros, we all got one photo each to cherish as a memoir for a lifetime.

With the Arctic Santa

Since 1985, Santa Claus has received 15 million letters from 198 countries, which makes Santa Claus Main Post Office a must on any visit to Santa Claus Village. The merry postal elves are happy to serve customers all year round in their headquarters, which is a real post office operated by Posti, Finland’s national postal service. Every letter sent from here is addressed from Santa and gets a special Arctic Circle postmark not available anywhere else. The highlight is that if you send a postcard on 18th January, it will be received only on 18th December as a special gift for Christmas. We had a small deal of shopping there – just a handful of cards and souvenirs. And we send many cards to our friends around the world. The cards are available from 2EUR.

Santa on his cabin

In Front of Santa Post Office

The Santa Post office

Writing letters to friends

The special stamp of Santa post office

Santa Salmon Palace Restaurant

Grilling the Salmon using traditional methods

By this time, hunger had struck its peak. We went straight to Santa Salmon Palace – the best-rated restaurant in Rovaniemi on TripAdvisor. Santa’s Salmon Place is all about original Lappish cuisine and atmosphere. They serve fresh and delicious salmon baked at our traditional Lappish teepee with open fire. The enchanting fire and the amazing feeling of Lapland can be really captured in its full essence from here. About the food, that is one of the best fish grills I ever tried on my life. The process of catching and cooking salmon fish on this freezing cold is very interesting to watch. I will write a detailed post about the salmon hunting and speciality of this amazing restaurant.

The amazing salmon Grill

With Local Beer

The backyard of Salmon Palace

We had to swiftly plan our activities after that, as the sun would set at about 3 PM and darkness would descend thereafter. Santa Claus Reindeer: Getting to know reindeer is easy in Rovaniemi, as many reindeer tours and farm visits are available – some of them in and some to Santa Claus Village. However, we planned to do that somewhere further inside the arctic so we skip from there. Kindly notice: flying reindeer are reserved for Santa only, as they require expert driving skills that take centuries to master. Snowman World: It is a mesmerizing frozen world that features a spectacular Ice World with Ice Restaurant, Ice Bar and Snow Fun activities for the whole family.

We went around the entire place and left back when it darkened. The view of the snowy Santa Claus Village in the glittering yellow lights in the dark backdrop is a sight that would remain etched in your hearts forever. The Arktikum Museum Science Center was on the way back to the city. Since the museum was a subject that never interested us, we just took a gaze from the outside, took some photos and left. Before we sleep I checked the northern lights predictions. But because of bad luck, it's too cloudy that day. So we decided not to waste time for hunting the light.

Our next day was packed for adventures in Levi. So, we welcomed the night with colourful dreams. The amazing driving through the empty arctic circle roads is a real fairytale experience. I will come back with those stories on the next Chapter…...

Photos From Sata’s Village

Husky safari in Christmas House Safaris Husky Farm