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Published: August 24th 2007
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Well we started this morning rather tired still from the night before. We hastily got dressed and left for nine. Eero drove us to the port and rather kindly helped us through checkout. The boat that took us was a catamaran and it was a pretty quick crossing, just under two hours. There was a proper passport control and our passports were scrutinised rather well.
Leaving the port in Helsinki was rather fabulous. You walk alongside the water towards some of the most impressive buildings. It was about this point that we decided that both sets of our parents would love Helsinki. We stopped off at an old fish market and bought some baguettes. I had mozzarella, falafel and tomato and Rob had reindeer meat. He won't be getting presents this year. We went to the tourists information and then headed up a hill to find the design Museum. We were thinking about going in but it looked more like an art gallery so we decided against it. After that we decided to head all the way across to the other side of the city to see the Sibelius monument. I think that we are glutton for punishment because it
took a long time to get in the right direction. Our map reading skills were rather dubious and there was quite a bit of going one way and then the other.
There was this fantastic little church cut into the rock that is all over Helsinki. It was called Temppeliaukio church and I would definitely recommend a visit to anyone in the area. Unless you know it's there you would be forgiven for assuming it was just another rocky park. '
The Sibelius monument was rather impressive but packed full of Visitors. I think it'd be lovely to see at night when it is floodlit. We spent a while there and looked up through the different size pipes. Walking back we stopped off at a shop by the water to get something to drink. The walk back was much more pleasant than the walk there because we went via the water and not the big soviet type blocks of houses.
When we got back into the main city centre we went to the main square just off the docks. This was a beautiful square with a rather impressive cathedral at the top of a load of steps.
We climbed the steps and sat for a while at the top. The view of the harbour and the surrounding square was rather fantastic from the top, however it was tainted rather by the sheer amount of buses parked up in the square. One of the main problems of Helsinki was that there were so many English and American people that it kind of spoilt the experience. Every place we went to see an attraction there was at least two coaches of people there first. I think it’d be much better to come back sometime not during such a big holiday.
We walked back to the ferry through a little market right near the port. It was rather fun because other than the typical souvenir stalls there were stalls selling mounds of fruit and berries. Yumyum. We got to the port a little early so went straight through passport control and sat and waited for the ferry to arrive. About five minutes before it did we realized that we had actually forgotten to check in and didn’t have the necessary documentation to get onto the boat. We slipped back through passport control just as the ferry arrived and checked
in and boarded just in time. The ferry took two and a half hours back to Tallinn, which was a bit longer than expected. Again, Rob and I took in turns to fall asleep on the ferry and were glad when it finally arrived.
We walked through Tallinn to find a bus stop that we knew the buses went to the road near ours. We caught the number 7 back to a supermarket near the flat and bought pasta and sauce for a meal for the evening. We wanted a bottle of wine, but Tallinn city council has introduced a law saying no sale of alcohol after 8pm.
Eero joined us in the supermarket and after we had all bought stuff for tea we went back to the flat and ate. However we didn’t talk for long as we had had a very long day and were ready for bed.
I went to bed straight away and Rob stayed up a bit and sorted out the photos for our travelblog. It turns out that he’s become a bit snap happy since we left England and we now have a few hundred pictures to choose from.
Anyway
we had a lovely day in Helsinki and it is on our list of a place to return to some day and we would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting a city break. Fantastic.
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kate
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Hi How big is Duckie? Looking at him on top of the turtle, he appears tiny. Please state his dimensions. thank you