Helsinki, another slightly cold scandinavian capital...

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Helsinki is my second little Scandinavian stop. As you can see, I'm already pretty late on publishing this entry. The reason is simple, I've spent the last week without much of an internet connection.

Helsinki was a lot colder than Stockholm, but this I ok as I'm pretty well equipped. My hotel is not really bang in the middle of town, but on one of the western suburbs, still a reasonable, and pretty cold 20 minutes walk to the center of the capital of the country. My first impression of Finland is that people smile a lot less here than in Sweden, and there are way more people who don't speak English. For the smile it may be due to the fact that this place seems a lot colder than Stockholm in weather conditions.

As I arrived already pretty late in the afternoon, I settle in my cozy room for the night, ready for an early rise to discover the city. As everywhere around here, nothing is cheap, except for sure walking around, thing that I tend to do a lot. But Helsinki is relatively speaking “cheaper” than Stockholm.

I spent my morning visiting downtown, my strolling started around not very interesting city streets to first reach the Cathedral. It is a huge white church standing on a hill. Next was the presidential palace, a pretty humbleand sober affair. Another church next, but sadly, the orthodox Uspensky Cathedral was closed to visitors this morning, but still an impressive building.

The highlight of my morning was Suomenlinna. The island is a an ancient sea fortress about 30 minutes by boat from downtown Helsinki. Suomenlinna is on the list of Unesco World Heritage site, a sure bet for a good morning. The sea was still stuck with ice all over...so was a nice experience to break through the ice with our little boat. I spent some time walking around the fortress, just enjoy the pictures. We may have been on the 23rd of March, it doesn't really feel like Spring yet in Finland. Snow and ice was still covering most of the fortress, and the cold wind was blowing solid, I was happy it was a sunny day!

I spent most of my afternoon walking around the city, enjoying a nice and sunny...but rather cold (I'm repeating myself)day before boarding the bus back to the airport. Short flight to Copenhagen, but there will be no blog on the capital of Denmark, that was done last September. Copenhagen is my entry point for my next great adventure, trust me, this is will something!

I have to go through at least 600 pictures taken over less than a week, 3 blog entries to come on a place pretty much out of the tourist path...coming soon...G....

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