The Model, Military or Railway tour of '24 - Part 2

After a detour of more than 60km yesterday night I realized that the city Tavastehus is just another name for Hämeenlinna. It's a very nice town:

Anyway,  it's a good starting-point for today's destinations. The first of them being:

The Parola Tank Museum 

Even if this museum displays some models...

...and even some large 1:6 scale RC-models...

...it's probably their hughe 1:1 collection of tanks that reflects several wars and conflicts Finland been involved in that's most impressive:

In the section for anti-tank warfare...

...they even have anti-tank simulator for public use:

They have a pretty decent museum-shop as well:

They have bags of army men. A bit 'pricey' though at €19...

I even found something useful in this museum shop. It finally looks like my army men will drive to the battlefield in the future in this new APC. -Even if it means challenges when driving motorcycle with no space left for anything...

So next out today is the:

Finnish Railway Museum

They even had a scale model of the museum it self:

I was here 23 years ago and I think they had a large model railway here then. Now this was the only running layout. Bous for free push-button to run trains for kids though:

Not many engine models either. This looks very American.

-But they have a large collection of real models:

...and the 'real' American ones are really hughe!

They have a garden café and a garden train...

- and a model of it:

I was happy with a cup of coffee though.

I didn't think the museum shop was so exciting either....

-Until I saw this display (!).

Here they had several rare Finnish models made in Finland. Mostly in H0.

Having already bought an APC today I had no space left in my motorcycle. The models are made by Mestarimallit 

Time to move on.

The Model, Military or Railway tour of '24 - Part 1

I'm working at a museum,  and I love visiting museums. - And especially those exhibiting military-, railway- or modelling items, or a combination them. Last year I had an early summer-vacation in early June and went riding my motorcycle northwards in Norway.  I planned to visit so many military museums as possible on my way.  There was only one 'problem'; They're usually not open on weekdays so early (not in the main tourist season though). Don't worry if you plan a vacation to Norway as many of the 'main military museums' are. But last summer I planned to visit the smaller ones on my way:

- Not very successful...

This year I'm having a later summer vacation and I'm still riding motorcycle. I'm planning a different route though. I'm not turning this blog into a travel-blog, but I plan to daily visit some either military, railway or modelling related museums or attractions for a week, and will post brief updates of some of the impressions which are related to the theme of this blog (just using my phone). I hope you will follow me on this tour this week. 

The first leg from home was pretty long. More than 600 km. Then you need a 'pit-stop' on the way. If you ever pass Värmskog in Sweden, I highly recommend you to stop at Värmskog Kafé. Their shrimp sandwiches are legendary! 

And they serves even larger sandwiches than this.. 

So what's this tour's first stop?

The Finnish Air Force Museum

Interesting camouflagepattern on these hangar doors:

This is a Finnish Fouga Magister, but the Katangese Air Force also operated 3 such aircrafts. Even if it was a trainer it could be armed, and Katanga used them for ground attacks on UN troops

It's also very interesting to see what museums like this have in their museum shops:

But the one thing I wanted most was not for sale. The content was though...

Time to move on and visit something else tomorrow.