Maybe I'm a sucker when it comes to Santa, but I had a great time at Santa's village - the real Santa's place, I might add, just north of Rovaniemi in Lapland. Our Travel Director's tour through China, Mongolia and Russia ended in Helsinki, so we couldn't leave Finland before a quick trip to the north to see the jolly gentleman. The ten hour train journey was lovely and relaxing after our tiring travels. The time actually went too quickly for us. We had our own private work compartment with power points and Internet and heaps of space. What, with catching up on emails and watching the snowy white world go by, we arrived in Rovaniemi before we knew it.

We arrived at night and settled in to our hotel in a nice central spot by the Ounasjoki River. After a good night's sleep we eagerly set off on the local bus to Santa's village which is a short distance to the north of Rovaniemi. Sunrise was not until 10:30, so we arrived in a soft blue twilight to the village draped in snow and fairy lights. It felt like magic, all calm and mysterious, but with the underlying excitement of anticipation in the air.

The day went all too quickly for us. We wandered around admiring the sights and soaking up the atmosphere. We watched the elves sorting mail in the post office and were happy to find the batch from Australia. We straddled the Arctic Circle and waved to whoever might have been watching the live webcam focussed on us at that moment. Actually, we did this quite a few times, just because it was there and just because we could. (And we got a certificate to prove we had crossed this line.) We wandered through the reindeer enclosure, posed with giant snowmen, did a spot of sliding down giant ice slides and drank cool drinks out of ice glasses in the ice bar inside a giant igloo.

The highlight, however, was meeting Santa. We entered his magic cavern and wound our way through fire and ice to join him by his warm fireplace for a nice chat. He was lovely, all kind and friendly, and he spoke to us as though he really cared about where we came from and if we were enjoying ourselves. He is the best Santa ever!

We were hardly aware of the sunset at 2:30 as this place seems timeless. The difference between the light of day and night seemed barely noticeable. The village, all white and wintery and bathed in a soft blue light or misty grey hue through our time there, was truly a peaceful place that was hard to leave. But leave we did, across the Arctic Circle one more time, back to the temperate zone and a nice warm minus 12 degrees in Rovaniemi.