Blogs from Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland, Europe

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 ... read more

Now sitting at Helsinki airport after our 23 hr stopover on our whirlwind circumnavigation of Europe. Budapest to Istanbul via Helsinki and London. It's'confused a few including me. It was very interesting flying over Poland and Latvia, you could see the fields and towns quite easily. Anyway, driving out of the airport at Helsinki you could easily think you were in New Zealand, overcast, cloudy, the trees and vegetation look the same and the cars even look the same. Until you read a sign..... We had a hotel right in the middle of the city so we did a bit of a look around. It is quite chilly and everybody is wearing coats so it feels like winter to me but its very light until late. The shops are full of serious winter clothes. Very stylish ... read more

September 2011 Helsinki, Finland was the second stop on our 11 day Scandinavian/St. Petersburg cruise aboard the Emerald Princess. Our tour of Helsinki began at 10:30 A.M. when we boarded the tour bus. We were driven to Senate Square where the Helsinki Cathedral was located. We had one hour to explore the downtown area. We walked to the local "farmer's market" and craft fair. Many of the craft booths had women knitting caps and scarves. In hindsite I wish we would have tried the fried fish that were being offered at many booths. From the market we walked down Esplande, a tree-lined park-like street bordered by stores, and then back to Senate Square. Next came a photo stop at the Church of the Rock-Temppeleaukio. Because of its location, it was very crowded with cars, tour buses, ... read more

While waiting for the trip to Helsinki Summersound Festival, I also decided to see Suomenlinna fortress and looked up information about it. The Unesco World Heritage list came to the fore and so I had an idea that the aim of my trips could be to see all the almost a thousand sites (enough for my lifetime, I guess, if not for several ones). It is true that I have already seen a lot of them, such as St. Petersburg, Kazan Kremlin, Yaroslavl City centre, Altai Mountains, Moscow Kremlin and Red Square, Riga centre, Baku Icheri Sheher and some others. But later I realized that I’ll have to be selective about the sites, because, for instance, not all sites could be easily accessible and imagine how much money would that require. Helsinki Summersound Festival was all ... read more

After the long drive through Finland this was thought of as a resting day where we can prepare for our planned trip to Tallinn the next day and our return to the US the following day. After waking up the first thing we do is a quick stop at the nearby supermarket to buy different provisions including Karelian pastry for breakfast. And then it's out to stroll through downtown Helsinki and take a closer look at the many and expensive stores. First stop was the old church close to our hotel that we could visit only from the outside as there was a wedding inside. Continuing down the Bulevardi we arrived at the Stockmann department store, one of the major stores in downtown Helsinki. Went inside and took a look at the products on offer which ... read more