September 1-3, 2010--Helsinki, Finland

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Wednesday, September 1, 2010



What a difference a day makes! Went from a capital city (Reykjavik, Iceland) that is smaller in public buildings than most small towns in US that are county seats to a CITY with narrow trams, HUGE railroad station like in Vienna and Frankfurt, buildings more than 5 stories etc., and many people rushing everywhere. Iceland with a total population of 300 thousand for whole country and its mostly pastoral setting was left far behind. (To see the blog for Iceland, the first part of our trip, go to: http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Iceland/blog-590551.html

Walking from the train station to the hotel (Scandic Marski)---local bus from airport dropped us off there---we came across a huge indoor shopping mall with a food court in the middle. Since it was 5ish and we hadn't had lunch we decided to see what kind of food they had.

They had a restaurant called Chicos that was Americanish---lots of hamburgers on the menu---so stopped for some dinner. We knew ourselves well enough that if we got to the hotel and sat down we would not want to go out again, as we were really exhausted! Valerie had a chicken breast with a slice of grilled goat cheese on the top of a salad bed full of fruit. I had some of the best salmon ever. It had been slightly smoked and was moist with a delicious sauce--"M'm M'm Good!"

We then went to bed as soon as we checked in. We chose to stay at the Hotel Maersk, because of its price and nearness to the train station. Both of us woke up about 9pm and ate the sandwiches we had with us. Read until about 1 am and went back to sleep. Better this morning, but still sore of body.

Not only are our bodies recovering from jet lag, but with the airlines not serving food, you miss meals unless you bring your own or purchase it on the plane at outrageous prices. I have decided to not to even convert the euro to dollars in my mind when looking at food prices on the menu. It is easier to live with the price, if you don't and pretend that it is in dollars otherwise I might starve. Europeans must come to the US and think our restaurant prices are really cheap as I have said before.



Thursday, September 2, 2010

Well, we have decided to force ourselves to go exploring today as heavy rain was predicted for Friday. We will rest then. Must at least get our train tickets to St. Pete as train is early in the morning when we do leave. Our day started out right with a very nice buffet—Finnish, European and American fares. We could choose everything from herring and lingonberry jam to scrambled eggs and hash browns.

We couldn't have picked a better hotel location---right downtown and within walking distance to all the things to see here---two big churches, the market place on the wharf, boat tour, shopping centers, etc. We walked from the hotel to the train station 2-3 blocks away and then on up the hill to the Lutheran Helsinki Cathedral.

In the square in front of the big Lutheran Cathedral they had a display of the "Buddy Bears," which is a circle of bears about 6' each and decorated by an artist from each of the UN countries. The USA was a statue of liberty bear. The bear from Ireland was dressed as a leprechaun. Some of them had "vests" that were decorated, some of them just covered in a design, some covered with scenes from their country like birds or animals, waterfalls, mountains etc. The Chinese had painted the bear's face bright yellow and dressed him with the old stereotype black outfit with little hat and pigtail. You can see them at

From there we walked 2-3 blocks toward the harbor and visited a few art shops on the way. At the harbor, there were food, crafts, and farm product stalls. We looked at a few of the stalls and then bought tickets for our Sunlines boat tour of the harbor and a few of the islands around Helsinki. Since we had about 15 minutes before the next tour, the ticket taker recommended a little tent-like café for hot drinks and something sweet that was nearby. Inside there were about 20 people sitting at tables drinking coffee and tea and having pastries—a regular Starbuck’s without the baristas and fancy signs.

We quickly returned to board our tour boat and thoroughly enjoyed the sights on the water. The hour-and-half tour showed many of the historical parts of the harbor, the beachside saunas, new apartments and homes with their own marinas, the zoo, and many little islets. We found the little saunas near the shores particularly fascinating. It was a good way to get a geological and historical overview of the area, but we would have also enjoyed going to a few of the islands that our brief stay did not allow time for. (See the map of the tour below.).

Upon our return, we walked once again through the wharf area stalls and then on up to the brick Uspenski Cathedral, which is Eastern Orthodox. As you can see from the pictures, this church had commanding views of the harbor and was quite imposing. The iconographic images and other artwork were well worth the climb up the hill.

Returning to the wharf area, we looked at several of the food stalls with their big pans of little fish and rice, but decided to by-pass those. One vendor offered us a taste of reindeer meatballs, which we gladly accepted, but they didn’t seem much different from beef ones.

From there we went to the Old Market Hall that has been “serving the city and tourists since 1889.” It is filled with small places to eat and lots of food vendors. We bought a typical Finnish cheese to be used with lingonberry jam and some good looking local bread to try. We did not care for the cheese or the jam, but the bread was fine.

By now we had really worn ourselves out, so we strolled up the lovely Norra Esplanade 3-4 blocks back to the hotel. The sculptures along the way were an interesting mix of old and modern.



Friday, September 3, 2010

Rested today as raining and cool. Went out for lunch/dinner and had the most delicious soup. Made like creamy clam chowder, but with huge chunks of salmon. Salmon is THE fish of choice along with some itty bitty white fish eaten whole about the size of an anchovy.

Went to Stockmann’s department store that was across from the hotel to get some Russian currency. We discovered a fairly large grocery store on the bottom floor and bought drinks and lunch stuff for the train in the morning. As many of you may know, we enjoy looking at the culture of a country through the eyes of the grocery store shopper. Cheese, as it occupies more shelf space, seems to be more important to the Finns than us in the US. Fun to see old El Paso brand as they have discovered Tex-Mex food and it is all the rage--remember the Iceland picture on that blog entry?

Going to bed early as our train leaves at 7:00am tomorrow for St. Petersburg and the station is just a couple blocks away. We will be met at the St. Petersburg train station by the cruise people. This is a small Russian river cruise ship so have no idea what we will encounter.

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