Last Day in Finland

Last Day in Finland

Today we took the Tram No. 3 tour of Helsinki.  It travels in a circle all around the city.  We stopped in the design district for our morning coffee and cinnamon bun this time in the 150 year-old Cafe Ekberg.



At 15 Euro ($22), they were pretty pricey cinnamon buns, but worth it for the classy surroundings.

We walked about, photographing Helsinki's Art Nouveau buildings, built in the early 1900s.  Finland's version of art nouveau seems to be rather more plain and solid than the French and German versions.

We stopped off at the Central Train Station, home to the world's fanciest Burger King:

We climbed to the top of several parks for the view

 and lunched in the Hakaniemi Market hall

 near our hotel.

We finished off the day with a walk to the park on tiny Tervasaari Island, connected to the mainland by a causeway, where Leo played a few tunes on his bagpipes.

Leo shows up a few 60 year-old Finns

Today Leo ran a half marathon around Kasaniemi Park, 3 times around it actually.  He came in first , beating two Helsinkites named Pertti and Pekka.

Meanwhile, I visited the Design Museum, featuring iconic Finnish designs throughout the century, like the classic mid-century Aalto chairs

that are so popular now, and Marimekko fashions. 

Marimekko's famous flower print

Aalto also designed the Helsinki metro seat, which is still in use today, so I can say I sat on an Aalto chair.

After dinner, we walked around the Kamppi neighbourhood, where we stumbled across theTemppeliaukion kirkko, designed by Timo ad Tuomo Suomalainen, and basically carved out of rock.  Unfortunately, it appears to be leaking as it's now covered by a large canvas shelter.  Perhaps, not a triumph of Finnish design.

Soon after we came upon the Helsinki Zoological Museum, notable for the 2 paper mache giraffes having coffee on its balcony,

and for its Finnish title:

If it's Saturday, We must be on the Ferry to Suomenlinna

And the World Heritage site of the day is also Suomenlinna. Honestly, these world heritage sites are a dime a dozen in Europe.

Saturday, we joined the hordes of tourists and locals on the ferry to Soumenlinna (public transit and covered by our regional transit card, of course).

As we left the harbour, this steamboat came puffing by. 

No fun allowed, Helsinki style (but probably the only place in Helsinki you can't drink in public):

Leo sails out of Helsinki harbour

Soumenlinna fortress was built by the Swedish government in 1748 on an island to protect the Helsinki harbour.  

In 1808 the Russians took over and built an Orthodox church and many other buildings.  When Finland gained independence in 1917, the church was covered to a Lutheran Church and all the cupolas were removed.  It's pretty dull  looking now, but livened up by some interesting ornamentation.

Giant chains and cannons!

However, the original Russian residences remain, and some 300 people live on Suomenlinna today in apartments and private residences, so you see their bicycles parked everywhere.

After a vigorous morning of siteseeing,

it was time for a little refreshment:

We're in Finland now, so it's a Kahvi and Korvapuusti break (Connie's having strawberry-rhubarb cake)

And here's the view we enjoyed  from the porch of the cafe:

We had dinner at the venerable Karl Johan restaurant.  

Venerable perhaps, but the menu has been updated; my risotto came dotted with generous amounts of truffle flavored foam (wasted on me, I couldn't detect any noticeable flavour).  Also the dessert was deconstructed apple pie, consisting of two small bites of what resembled apple crisp, really good homemade vanilla icecream, and, this time, apple-flavoured foam that was admittedly delicious.

First of 5 Days in Helsinki

We were only able to rent our car for 1 month and we had to get it back to Helsinki Airport on September 11.  So this morning we organized all our gear into our 3 suitcases, not a simple task, dropped off our car, and took the bus into town.

We had cashed in our Airmiles to stay 4 days at the Hilton Helsinki on the Strand.  Sounds fancy, eh!  Unbeknownst to us the hotel is in the midst of renovation and we arrived to the sound of jackhammers.  And our room faces the office building next door and not the ocean.

Hilton Helsinki Strand

But the noise doesn't carry to our wing, and it is centrally located, just across from the Hakaniemi market, metro, and tram station.  And our room is very spacious.

If you look closely you'll see this boat docked near our hotel is called Saunaship.  In the summer you can charter it to cruise and sauna at the same time.

After checking in, we walked down to the kauppatori, or main market square on the harbour, past the Helsinki Lutheran Cathedral,

sort of the Sacred Coeur of Helsinki, ostentatious on the outside, but spare on the inside (because Lutheran), and then past the Orthodox Church, with its Coppola on the outside, and it's richly decorated interior.

The kauppatori was full of fruit stalls selling lingonberries and blueberries and various souvenir stalls.

In the background, lingonberries in season

We had a spicy lamb sausage on a bun with coleslaw relish here for supper.

Afterwards, I was too tired to go out, but Leo walked the downtown, reported it was very lively, with everyone on the streets having drinks and enjoying the pleasant evening.  And he brought back tarts from Fazer, one of Helsinki's longstanding cafes/bakeries/chocolatiers.

Baltic Cruise Finnlines Style

Leo had to get me out of Sweden before I went too native.

At the Skansen Folkmuseet

When we purchased our tickets for the Finnlines ferry from Stockholm to Turku, Finland, we didn't expect to be the only tourists. But when we arrived at the terminal we were the only passenger vehicle to be seen amidst a sea of transport trucks.

We convened in the drivers lounge to a hearty (read heavy) breakfast in the company of truck drivers from all over Europe.

Only a short portion of the trip was across open water; most of the time we were travelling between small, low lying islands.  There were groups of whooper swans all the way, with some ducks and cormorants. The highlight for us was when a migrating sparrow hawk hovered over the ship, ready land, until he realized we weren't an island and continued on his way south.

Second Day in Stockholm

On our second day we returned to Djurgarden Island to visit Sweden's original outdoor museum, Skansen.  Kind of like Barkerville, except larger, with buildings brought in from all over the country to represent different regions and eras.

Oh, look Leo, a bakery!

It took most of the day to visit only a portion of the park.  We chatted with an iron monger who showed us tools made by Husqvarna and Sandvik, and an original Electrolux refrigerator.  A housewife from the 30s explained that hers was a new profession with increased affluence, previously most women had to work on the farm or in the family business. 

Had to stop for a Kanelbulle and coffee, of course.

We ate paper-thin flatbread made from barley - mmmm, tasty cardboard, and chatted with a man knotting a fishing net.  He also showed us woven birch bark clogs, and told us about the beliefs and superstitions of the time..

There were churches, Sami dwellings, a zoo of Swedish wildlife, including a very bored brown bear,

and even a manor house.

We had dinner in the Ostermalm neighbourhood.  Everyone was out in the street cafes having an after work drink and enjoying the beautiful weather. Most Stockholm restaurants thoughtfully provide blankets for their outdoor customers, it's quite a bit north of Paris here.

Finally, we walked along the shore of the Sodermalm neighbourhood looking for the best view.

 This supposedly "gritty," working class neighbourhood is where the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo lived, but we happened upon a little old village now swallowed by the city.

A Few Days in Stockholm

Leo makes a few new friends in Stockholm

Janet, our most excellent Paris tour guide, would have been proud of our tourism savvy in maximizing the use of our Stockholm transit pass.  We chose a campsite that was a five-minute walk from a metro station, and then used the metro to get everywhere we wanted.  We even found a public ferry to take us to a popular island in the Stockholm archipelago, rather than springing for a tourist ferry. 

By accident, a restaurant next to the campsite metro station turned out to be the best meal of our trip.  It was a little  fancier than we expected and filled on a Monday night with locals, and we'll worth the expense.  No photos, too tacky for this place, and a little too close to our fellow diners. 

The next day we took the metro (tunnelbana in Stockholm) to Gamla Stan (Old town),

 and checked out the narrow cobblestone streets and of course the cafes, settling for a fika at Brod &Salt, where they make a very delicious looking sourdough bread we did not try.  What's a fika?  Coffee and a Kanelsnaeka, of course!

We also checked out the royal palace andand city hall.  We meant to climb the tower at city hall to get the view, but there was a 20 minute wait, so instead we took the ferry

over to Djurgarden for lunch in the Blaporten cafe's garden.  Mmmm, delicious Swedish meatballs!

Then we headed over to the Vasa museum.  The Vasa was a warship built in the 1600s that sank 45 minutes into its maiden voyage.  Built to demonstrate the power of King Gustavus Adolfus, it proved to be too top heavy to be seaworthy.  It sat in Stockholm harbour perfectly preserved until 1961 when it was raised and eventually housed in Stockholm ' most popular museum.

In the dimly lit (for preservation purposes) museum it rises up like a ghost ship.  We were in the museum for 3 hours, examining the fascinating exhibits.  They even display the skeletons of some of the 30 victims, with profiles of the individuals based on their clothing, tools, facial characteristics and even nutrient deficiencies.

Next on the agenda was a trip to a Unesco World Heritage site cemetary, the Skogskyrkogården.  It was designed in the 1920s by two cutting edge architects in the modernist style.  We particularly liked the meditation grove, accessed by a long stairway to the top of the hill.

The departed are buried right in the forest between the trees.

We finished up with dinner in a tiny restaurant in the old town.  So tiny the patrons were seated on child-sized seats so more people could fit in.  No wonder we were the oldest people in the place.

Fasterbo and Malmo

Leo had read about the bird festival happening in Fasterbo, at the extreme SW end of Sweden.  Birders found that the lighthouse garden here was a haven for migrating songbirds in the spring and fall because it's the first point of land the reach after crossing the Baltic Sea.  After the lighthouse was automated it became the Fasterbo Ornithological Station. Songbirds are captured in mist nets, banded and released.  It's also a good place to monitor the number of raptors passing over as they migrate.

 We drove out to the Falsterbo lighthouse on Saturday morning.  There was a big crowd of birders with scopes,

but not much happening, although there was a fellow from the bird banding station with a bag full of songbirds that had been captured in their mist nets.

He'd pull them out and identify them in Swedish, which meant nothing to us.  So we headed to the birdfest headquarters where we drowned our sorrows with a kanelsnaeka. 

 Otherwise, there weren't many birds around, so drove down to the narrow isthmus of the peninsula, where it started to rain, hard.  Fortunately, Anna's bageri was close by, so we ducked in there for our second kanelsnaeka of the day.

On Sunday we returned to the Fasterbo lighthouse.  We followed the crowd way out to the point where we found out you had to have a membership to get into the reserve, but we charmed the gatekeeper by telling him we'd come all the way from Canada.  It then proceeded to rain and blow really hard, but at least our downwind sides were dry, we said.  We saw swans and greylag geese and a large seal, but then we turned around and soaked our front sides. There was nothing else to do but return to headquarters, change into dry clothes, and have a Kanelsnaeka.

In the afternoon we checked out downtown Malmo.

It seemed a pleasant city, not too busy on a Sunday, on two rivers.  Like most European cities it has a pedestrian mall, but the many of the stores were closed
so no Bjorn (pronounced Borye, we've learned) underwear for us.

 Then we checked out the tallest building in Sweden ,



the turning torso,

and finished up the day in the city park,

 where we saw our first barnacle geese, begging for food.