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Published: June 19th 2011
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After 5 days in Stockholm, my next stop was Helsinki; a mere 45 minute flight away. Helsinki, whilst being a nice enough city, didn’t really have the same great feeling that Stockholm did. Helsinki is substantially smaller than its Swedish counterpart but yet doesn’t offer the same character or history. Some parts of the city were of course impressive; the main square (Senate Square) with the white and green Lutheran Cathedral, (Helsinki’s most famous landmark) was probably the highlight. A few of the other landmarks, such as the Russian Orthodox cathedral and the Sibelius monument were equally interesting. What I liked best about the city was the fact that it is so easy to get out of the city and into the forests – my hostel, which is actually part of the 1952 Olympic Stadium, was just outside the city centre and yet had on its doorstep a fair sized Scandinavian forest, where you could walk for some time without running into hoards of people. The coast, looking into the Gulf of Finland and Estonia 70km south, was also quite scenic. I spent one afternoon on the island of Suomenlinna, which is a stone’s throw from Helsinki city centre and easily
reachable by ferry, and where the main attraction is a fort built in the 18th century by the Swedes just before they lost control of Finland to Russia. The balance between Swedish and Russian influences is what really epitomises Helsinki; officially the city is bilingual (Finnish/Swedish) with every single sign being in both of these languages, whereas a lot of the more grander buildings and monuments date from the period of Russian rule, including a statue of Tsar Alexander I in Senate Square.
So although the Swedish & Russian influences do definitely make for an interesting mix, I personally preferred the areas outside of Helsinki rather than the city itself. One nearby town I visited was Porvoo (or Borga in Swedish); the second oldest town in Finland and one of the most attractive today. Even though the heavens poured down on me for most of the time I was there, I did really like the town, with its hilly, cobbled streets, broad river, dense pine forests and a strange-looking cathedral which resembles a large barn more than a place of worship. The town felt a lot more Finnish than cosmopolitan Helsinki, even if Porvoo is unashamedly over-touristy.
Another day trip
from Helsinki, Turku was a bit further away (2 ½ hours), but as the country’s oldest town, third city and capital for nearly 700 years up until 1812, I thought it would be worth the visit. I had high expectations for Turku – as the Swedes founded the city and as it is located at the other end of the archipelago that runs from Sweden to Finland, I was hoping to find a city reminiscent of beautiful Stockholm; instead Turku felt more or less like Helsinki. That said, Turku does have more history than Helsinki, with an impressive castle and cathedral, but besides those, there really wasn’t much else to see. The fact that the weather was so erratic probably didn’t improve my feelings about Turku (changing from bright sunshine to torrential rain in the blink of an eye); even still I wasn’t that impressed. However, as I finished in Turku earlier than I had anticipated, I had time to visit the town of Naantalí – a small coastal town 15km from Turku. For me Naantalí made the trip to Turku worth it – it was a stunningly beautiful town with archipelago views, a character-filled old town and a beautiful
harbour. Furthermore, the town is also home to one of Finland’s best known exports – no, not Nokia, but rather Moomin World, the home of the Moomin hippos. This seemed to be Finland’s equivalent of Disneyland, though not quite as big and just a bit cheaper too. Even though I didn’t visit Moomin World, Naantalí was lovely – I almost wish I had missed Turku out completely and gone straight there.
I spent my last whole day in Finland at Nuuksio National Park, just outside of the Helsinki metropolitan area. The park more or less summed up Scandinavia – dense pine forests, glistening lakes and blissfully peaceful. Even though this is the nearest national park to the capital, it wasn’t bustling with people, and luckily for the weather actually stayed dry and mostly sunny for the whole day, allowing me to really explore Nuuksio.
With that, my time in Scandinavia has finished already. Hopefully I will be back one day and head a bit further north to explore the great wildernesses, but for now I am content with having had a taster of Scandinavian cities and landscapes, with the latter especially being something rather special. Probably the strangest aspect of
Scandinavia for me is the light – as it’s now midsummer, it doesn’t get fully dark until around 11:30 at night, and the sun rises between 2 and 3am (so I’m informed) – though I could definitely get used to this, I don’t envy the Finns in winter when they must have only a few hours of light each day.
From here on in, it’s south and west only for me - I am about to cross the Gulf of Finland by ferry to Tallinn in Estonia – my next blog will come from there – before heading through the Baltic countries to Poland.
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