Helsinki

---

Arriving in Helsinki after a smooth 2 hour crossing from Tallinn our guide Marta took us on an orientation walk of the city. We had really been enjoying these walks as they helped us to get our bearings for when each evening we explored on our own. While strolling down a lovely tree lined boulevard Marta explained the street filled with shops and cafes was the Helsinki's equivalent of the Champs Elysees, certainly somewhere we would explore later. We walked towards the bustling harbour to a colourful market selling fruit, vegetables, crafts and local fish, the favourite being smoked herring.

In the afternoon we toured the local sites which included the Olympic Stadium, the Olympic games were held here in 1952. We also stopped at Sibelius park to see the world famous composer Jean Sibelius monument by Eila Hiltunen which was erected in1967. The Sibelius Monument, resembling organ pipes, is made of welded steel with the bust of the composer on one side, it is huge 8.5m high, 10.5m wide and 6.5m deep and is built of over 600 pipes and weighs 24 tons, it was certainly very impressive.

Our next stop was the famous Rock Church, Temppeliaukio, it is a very unusual building with the interior walls created naturally by the rock. We were able to sit inside and view the amazing dome made of 13 miles of copper tubing. That evening Ron and I decided to have dinner in one of the many outdoor cafes that lined the boulevard Marta had called the "Champs Elysees," I tried reindeer and was pleasantly surprised at how tender the meat was, we both enjoyed sitting outside sipping champagne on a beautiful balmy evening watching the world pass by. Walking back to out hotel we were surprised to see a dining table of 12 people on a platform not much larger than the table being hoisted by crane to at least 50 metres where they were to be served their meal by the accompanying chef, not something for the faint hearted.

The next morning was spent walking around the Seurasaari Open-Air Museum which displays traditional Finnish housing and traditional way of life of crofters, peasants and gentry from the 18th to the 20th century. All the buildings had were original and had been relocated to the open air museum, a fantastic way to preserve and display history.

Travelling back to the Helsinki harbour we sampled the local fish served with vegetables for lunch at the market. As we had a free afternoon Ron and I walked for a couple of hours around the harbour, we not only saw a couple of cruise ships but also a number of ice breakers used to keep the seaways open throughout winter. We finished our walk with a drink in a very interesting bar, an old lighthouse ship, Ron was impressed. We had a final dinner with our tour group that evening, the majority of the group except for us and two other couples were continuing onto Russia to take river cruise.

Our tour officially finished on our third day in Helsinki with most of the group leaving early to start their next tour of Russia. As Ron and I weren't leaving until late afternoon we took the opportunity to take a ferry across to Suomenlinna fortress, one of the biggest sea fortresses in the world. Founded in 1748 and built on islands off the coast of Helsinki, Suomenlinna is not only one of the most popular attractions in Finland but is also a place where people live. It was included in Unesco’s World Heritage List in 1991 as a unique monument to European military architecture.

Late afternoon we were transferred to the airport for our short flight to Oslo. We both agreed we had really enjoyed the tour with Scenic, everything went very smoothly. We had a fantastic guide in Marta and a great bus driver, the hotels had all been of high standard and in fantastic locations and the countries we had toured had all been fascinating in their own right.

---

Photos

Temppeliaukio
The Rock Church

Temppeliaukio
Rock Church