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Published: January 6th 2013
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Wow, the last week has been a bit epic. It’s hard to believe that one week ago (Thurs) we were frantically rushing around looking for Dave’s passport as he’d left it somewhere after hiring a van on Monday. Not an experience we want to repeat anytime soon I assure you. I’m sitting here on the ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn which as you can imagine is fairly huge and full of people heading over to Tallinn for cheap booze. Not that I blame them, Finland is ridiculously expensive.
So, to follow Dave’s previous entry, we had just boarded the plane to Helsinki, albeit 9 hours earlier than expected. And we found snow! Helsinki had it everywhere although as the warmer weather seemed to be following us, it also was melting relatively fast. The lovely people at the airport information kiosk helped us out and we boarded a FinnAir bus to the city centre. One thing I will note is that everyone speaks English sooooo well. And they are sooo friendly. It was the other tourists that seemed to have little grasp of personal space and the area around themselves.
We arrived at the train station (bus depot) in the
city centre and soon realised we had no idea what was up, or east, or west, or anything really. Luckily I had downloaded an offline map, so after searching for what appeared to be the smallest street signs in the world we orientated ourselves and set off for our hotel. The hotel was on the 5
th and 6
th floor of a fairly big department store (Forum) in the city centre and seemed fairly boutique-y. We pulled out the standard tourist literature and tried to remember what we had planned on seeing. Eventually we realised we had better set off sooner rather than later or we would never see anything at all. The local area was fairly nice and we set off down one of the busiest shopping streets in Helsinki on the way to Senate Square and the Cathedral (Senaatintori, Tuomiokirkko). We realised we were a bit peckish and spying a sign which seemed to indicate 7 tapas for €30 we headed for the restaurant shown on the sign (Nuevo). Sitting down we ordered 2 beers and the tapas to have between us. Wow, it was the smallest tapas in the world! You’ll see a picture of it somewhere here.
Tapas at Nuevo
Most expensive €30 ever! Shocked we finished and decided to head out to see a bit more of the city.
We wandered over to Uspenski Cathedral which was nicely illuminated by the setting sun and then south from there to the Market square which was bordered by the Presidential Palace and the City Hall. There were some turtle bollards which I found quite cute.
From the Market square we walked back west along the Esplanadii towards our hotel. On the way we found Stockmanns! It was a huge department store and we wandered in there to find some more reasonably priced food. We chose Hesburger which seems to be the Finnish version of McDonalds, or at least something like that. It was definitely a lot cheaper than Nuevo though as two burgers, fries, onion rings and coke came in at less than €15. Maybe we’re just not cut out for fine dining.
After a nap, we headed back out into the city and found a bar called Oluthuone Kaisla which had a ridiculously extensive beer list which also had a line of Fullers. We decided we must try Finnish beer though and so asked the bar staff what we should try.
Engels house at the edge of Senate Square
Only house in completely different style cos the guy had money and didn't want to change it. I ended up with an Onward Muflon which was quite tasty and Dave had Plevnan Smörre. One of the bar staff with a suspiciously “home counties” accent then helped Dave get another beer – Pekko P.A., apparently not as good as the first. We left the pub in search of “drunk food” i.e. greasy, unhealthy stuff and found a kebab shop called Chilli after which we called it a night.
The next day, after a mini sleep in until 10, we again tried to pack everything we had into our rucksacks... they do seem to be getting lighter, and checked out by 11am. The staff at the hotel kindly let us store our luggage there while we tried to see the rest of Helsinki. A quick stop at a cafe in the World Trade Centre and we were refuelled ready to go.
Over at the train station we had a little trouble searching for the service centre for HSL to get a day travel ticket. Finally realising it was underground we got a couple of tickets and went to the 3B/3T tram stop. This tram services the city in a figure 8 loop and goes to all the
major tourist sites. Our first stop off this tram that we wanted to see was the Sibelius monument which is found, funnily enough, in Sibelius park to the northwest of the city centre. On the way there we had a lot of fun trying not to fall flat on our faces in the icy streets and avoiding the little brown lumps which were dog poo! Yes, you did hear it, dog poo. It seems that people in that particular area of Helsinki (and I’m not speaking of anywhere else cos I haven’t been there yet) have great difficulty in picking up their dog excrement and, in fact, we saw one resident happily letting her little ball of fluff leave its present on the side of the road and walk on! But back to an actual sight... the monument is a huge sculpture of pipes sort of welded together like a giant mutant panpipe flute thingy. Very cool.
Walking back to the tram stop we continued over the road to the Olympic Stadium (and this was the second one on our tour and within the week!). On the way I thought I saw a shortcut to the footpath and like
an idiot ended up to my knees in snow L Unfortunately the lift to the top of the tower was closed which prevented us getting a nice aerial view of the city but we did manage to peek through a door into the stadium itself.
Finally we got on the tram and headed back towards the city and stopped at Temppeliaukion kirkko, which is basically called the Church in the Rock. This was a cool little church which was built into a rock pile and roofed over.
We decided to break our tour up by having a late lunch at the food court in the Forum (which was another huge department store). Cheap food there and all the vendors seemed to be hawking for business. Also pretty rammed for what I assume was the same reason we were there, cheap, filling food. Dave had an eastern Mediterranean salmon dish with chips and I had a chicken and halloumi version of the same.
That done we got back on the tram to continue the lower half of our figure 8. We were running out of time by then and realised we didn’t have time to go to the
Design museum. Boo L The light was fading and we peered out into the gloom checking out the funky buildings. By the time we got back to the train station in the centre we had run out of time and had to quickly get over to the hotel to get our bags. We headed back to station this time lugging our bags and got on the number 9 tram to the west harbour where the ferry was leaving for Tallinn. I think everyone had the same idea as this was the busiest I’d ever seen the public transport in Halsinki. Check in was a little like airport check in minus the luggage scan and really quick. We waited for a bit and finally got the all clear to head for the boat. Let me just say the boat is nowhere near the waiting area! I think we probably walked about a kilometre just to get there. Once on the boat we found some comfy seats in the bar and settled in.
Things I have learnt in Helsinki Kiitos – Thankyou, the most helpful word ever
Moi – Hello
Anteeksi – Excuse me/I’m sorry!
Don’t step
on the brown lumps in the snow.
Everything is closer than you think...
Total Olympic Stadiums visited this trip 2!
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