Australia, Sunshine Coast, Bli Bli; The Sunshine Castle

For a compassionate world traveler interested in the historical sights of the world visiting the Sunshine Castle at Bli Bli in the Sunshine Coast of Australia is a curiosity without question.

History

The Bli Bli castle is a modern replica of a Norman medieval castle. The building of it started in the early 1970's by an enthusiast who thought to build a castle in Australia.

The first time my family visited the castle was in 1996. We were told by friends that this is a curiosity that we just must see. And truly, even then while we were swept beyond belief by the idea that someone would build a castle in such a place, we were also charmed by it, especially by the then new doll displays.

Visiting the castle today when it has grown and flourished into a real awarded tourist attraction is greatly inspiring.

The castle is a compelling experience of mixed and matched kind

The compassionate visitor is introduced to the medieval life through the objects and signs around the castle, including a considerable display of swords.

Visitors can dress the part, walk around the battlements hunting clues to the questions about the life in the medieval times and at the same time get the more frivolous fairytale feel of childhood memories through marveling the expanded doll exhibition and the fairytale panoramas scattered around the place. There is also a nice miniature train display to see.

Our only disappointment was that there is no access for the higher parts of the castle to people with wheelchairs. Some creative thinking would be greatly appreciated in getting the young disabled persons to see the dolls and experience the spectacular battlement views over the coastal area.

One of the highlights of the exhibitions is the room displaying different castles around the world. It is on the ground floor and would be accessible even to the people in wheelchairs. It truly shows the owner's love of castles, especially the German ones.

The other curiosity that greatly interested our younger mediaevalist minded friends is the original chair that was used in the production of the Hercules and Xena TV series.

The second highlight of our visit was the castle shop. It is filled with quality toys and figurines of knights, fairies and castles.

Our experience

All in all our visit was highly enjoyable. Our friend, who has lived near the castle for a long time, but never visited it before commented that it will be a great place to bring her grand children over the summer holidays. "It is just a place to wake their curiosity", she said. Be prepared to spend a much longer time there than originally planned.

If a visitor were to spend a longer time in the costal area there are scheduled events, such as opera and other theater events throughout the year, including a Medieval Fair.

The Sunshine Castle is a place that a traveler can visit again and again as it keeps growing and developing just like the old castles did. It's presence has been printed in my mind for the last 15 years and I look forward to taking my friends and family for renewed visits there in the future.

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Finland, Tuuri, The Country Village Shop

This is a blog about compassionate travel. In my opinion being compassionate and dedicated is also fun. According to research, people who work to enhance the wellbeing and health of others live longer and are happier.

Sometimes people should just visit palaces that make them feel good. In many countries, there are such places where people plan to go to spend a day just for the experience of it.

One experience in Finland you should not miss is a visit to the world's largest country village shop. I can just imagine what is on the people's mind when planning their trip to this particular store.

It is a real shopping extravagance. Even for an experienced world traveler who has seen the largest department stores packed with customers, visiting Tuuri in July can be an overwhelming experience.

It seems that most of Finland, half of Russia, Sweden and many other European countries are represented there on any one day. The restaurant lunch production alone is a huge undertaking.

I was told that the buffet alone serves well over 1000 lunches on any day during the summer season. It is cheap, easy and delicious. They even have the most wonderful vegetarian variation to the buffet. I was so impressed.

The only thing that resembles country living in this place is the entrance to shop where you
walk through the old stone barn to the shopping street. The restaurant is also situated in the
old barn. It is very atmospheric. Otherwise the store is dedicated to kitsch.

The castle looking front of the building is a hotel and the food market. The other part of the huge store is the department store where you can buy anything and everything.

The enormous lucky horse shoe resembles the original horse shoe that was situated on the original door. The Finnish word 'Tuuri' means 'luck' in English. It is the name of the Village where the shop is situated.

The shop was originally founded by the brothers Keskinen. Vesa Keskinen, a son of one the original brothers, who is the Managing

Director loves Disney's Donald Duck. This dedication is reflected in his business attitude. Even his house next door resembles the Duckburg building design.

The owners are really astute business people. There is a railway hotel, a free caravan park, where the customers can park their mobile homes and a lot of free circus and tivoli businesses on the side. You can find markets on every corner.The whole village shares the customer base. Everyone prospers.

One should perhaps think of the whole place as a circus. It probably needs a few days to experience the whole thing.

We only had a fee hours, but I am sure that when next time is Finland, we'll be back. If nothing else, we definitely want to see what new extravagance has been created while we were away.

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