Helsinki, Finland

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I have decided that I will wait to talk about the city of Stockholm for when I go with my parents at the beginning of November, so I will skip ahead on my trip to our travels to Helsinki, Finland. The tour is organized by a tour company called Time Travels. The trip includes a cruise ship from Stockholm to Helsinki, a guided city tour of Helsinki, a cruise ship from Helsinki to St. Petersburg, activities in St. Petersburg and the same trip route on the way back to Stockholm. Although the weather has been somewhat rainy I probably shouldn't complain as it appears that Saskatchewan has had some snow! It is about +10 degrees Celsius here.

This trip has been unique for me as it is my first experience travelling by ship. After registering in Stockholm on Monday afternoon we boarded onto the Viking Line Terminal cruise ship called Gabriella. There were 11 floors, with the top floor being the Captain’s Floor. Beneath this there was floors with restaurants, a nightclub, the duty free shop and more. Our rooms were in the dead bottom of the boat, which meant we were even below the floor where people parked their cars and technically underwater. My room was shared with three other girls so it was quite cramped. We didn't mind though and were excited for our trip to begin, having our share of fun in the evening enjoying some wine before we settled in for the night.

Around 10 am we arrived at Helsinki where we docked and unloaded our luggage. We then took a two-hour guided tour of the city by bus. Helsinki is a relatively small city with about 600,000 people. The country has been an independent republic for about 94 years and has many Russian and Swedish elements due to the two countries fighting over Finland through the centuries. The architecture has a Russian influence, while Finnish people also speak the Swedish language. The tour guide mentioned that Finnish people love their saunas and their coffee.

We were fortunate enough to be in Helsinki for the Baltic Herring Festival, which is a market where local people sell all sorts of fish (not only herring) at the beginning of every October. Other famous sites included the Olympic stadium that was used for the 1952 Summer Olympics and statues such as the Lady Statue of Amanda and the statue of Alexander II of Russia. The majority of Finland is Lutheran (about 80%) so we also stopped in to see some prominent Lutheran churches. These differed very much from Catholic churches I have seen on my travels in that they were sparsely decorated and quite plain. There was a Church that was actually built inside a rock boulder that was very unique. There was also an interesting monument that we visited made out of 600 tubes of aluminum dedicated to the famous Finnish composer Sibelius.

After our tour we had the afternoon to spend as we pleased in the city. A few of us went to the Pizza Hut buffet for lunch (typical!) for around 10 euro. Unfortunately it rained in the afternoon but we still walked and shopped around the downtown area, investigated the herring market a bit further, and grabbed some delicious Finnish coffee. We then met back in the town square where a bus took us to the dock where our new cruise ship awaited.

That evening we boarded the Russian cruise ship (St Peterline) called Princess Maria that took us to St. Petersburg where we continue our trip. It is quite similar to the last cruise ship we were on. Poor Ashley and Erik ordered hamburgers for supper from the deli only to discover they were raw on the inside. When they asked them for new ones, they took them and reheated them in the microwave. Long story short: no hamburgers. We spent the rest of the night hanging out and checking out the cruise nightclubs. We also wrote a message in a bottle that I threw overboard so hopefully someone discovers it someday. One of the girls on the trip from Germany said she did this when she was young and got a response 12 years later!

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Photos

Lutheran Rock Church
Built inside a boulder

Lutheran Church
City Square. Looking like a dork!

Baltic Herring Festival
Clara, Suzi and Eric talking to a man who was whittling wood to make polar bear figurines.

Comments

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photos
Cool photos....interesting that this church is built in a boulder.