It’s the same. But it’s very different.
I’ve waited years to visit Jyväskylä, to see Paviljonki and maybe even take a wander down the famous walking street. Last week, I finally did just that.
Wait, what?
OK, I need to add some context here. I have, of course, seen central Finland in its summer colors for years. It’s the opposite end of the year I was keen to gain a first view of. Year-round Jyväskylä life is something that’s been talked about more than ever in the service park since Toyota’s return to the WRC – out of a base in the suburbs of the city – in 2017.
But even before then, I’d fancied seeing what the center of our summer looked like wrapped in winter.
Last week really was Rally Finland out of context. For a start, we could actually afford a room in the Sokos Paviljonki Hotel. For 51 weeks of the year, this is an unremarkable outpost of a typically functionable Finnish chain. But for seven days in August, it’s the place to stay, to be seen and to see the world of the World Rally Championship.
A good few years ago, I was complaining to a colleague about the room in a flat I’d rented on the other side of town. I struck gold. Resplendent in his white Volkswagen shirt, he said: “A couple of our guests haven’t turned up – you can take one of their rooms in you want. They’re in the Paviljonki…”
Let’s have a think about that one. Yes please!
The journey from my bedroom to the media center took 60, maybe even 70 seconds. But the highlight of the trip came at breakfast on a Finland-early Sunday morning. I’d just settled down with a cup of coffee when the smell of burning was the precursor to the fire alarm going off. Which was a precursor to us all being emptied out of the hotel in time to watch the Jyväskylä fire department arrive.
That is, I suspect, the last time Luis Moya left his toast in the toaster that long…
Sitting in breakfast last week was plain strange. The raspberry jam sat the same on rye bread and the over-cooked bacon remained as oddly appealing as ever. But there wasn’t a Toyota T-shirt or Hyundai overall in sight.
The food was the same, but the atmosphere very different at breakfast
It was the oddest thing, like we’d kept some kind of secret. Until we went outside. And it was snowing. This was what I was here for: Paviljonki firmly out of context. The ‘service park’ was a slightly slushy and entirely empty white out. It was a stadium with no game.
Walking through, passing the official merch spot, where M-Sport sits and on towards the in-control was among the more illuminating moments. The lake? Frozen, Of course it was. But for the first time in 25-odd years I’d seen it without boats. The bridge was the same, the cityscape behind it identical, but people were ice skating across it.
Surreal.
The bizarre continued as we progressed down the E63: Hotelli Jamsä with skidoos parked outside was a first. As was seeing actual skiers in the Himos ski resort. Then we turned left and, you guessed it, drove towards a place called Hämepohja, left again and drove towards a place called Ouninpohja.
The green house, the yellow house, Mutanen, Kakaristo. All there and all distinctly awkward – devoid of the noise, the people, the sunshine or the rain.
A view normally filled by rally cars and teams - but not in February
To be honest, the whole experience was strange. Back in the days when we were struggling for Swedish snow in Karlstad, I would often share a beer with Finnish colleagues and have them tell me how perfect the winter conditions were in Finland on the week in February. For years, I couldn’t help but wonder if Suomi might be the answer (which indeed it was in 2021, if a little further north in the Arctic Circle).
I’d always imagined Jyväskylä as a November to March winter wonderland, with pristine powder dusting log-loaded trains and Neste garage forecourts.
The reality wasn’t quite the same. For two days, the rain mizzled into snow and it was colder at home. But it definitely did serve one purpose: it fuelled my fever for going back at the right time of the year.
It’s not often I say this, but I can’t wait for the summer.
