After the long drive through Finland this is supposed to be the resting day where we can prepare for our planned trip to Tallinn the next day and our return to the US the following day. After waking up the first thing we do is a quick stop at the nearby supermarket to buy different provisions including Karelian pastry for breakfast. And then it’s out to explore Helsinki starting with the old church close to our hotel that we can visit only from the outside as there is a wedding inside.
There are some beautiful buildings and interesting mausoleums nearby that we explore as we make our way through Helsinki.
Continuing down the Bulevardi we arrive at the Stockmann department store, one of the major stores in downtown Helsinki. We have to go inside and take a look at the products on offer which are basically anything that you could want. After strolling a bit more we decide to try a cafe in Helsinki and stop at the first we find a Robert’s Coffee place which has quite good coffee, we even bought some coffee beans for ourselves afterwards. Then given that it starts raining we enter a large bookstore nearby, it has quite a few English books on a wide variety of topics.
After this and after the rain has passed we stroll down the Promenade passing the Havis Amanda Fountain which is really popular with the tourists. But our eyes are drawn by something else, a pony seemingly abandoned in the park, can be take it and ride away we wonder?
Then we visit again the covered market, Kauppahalli, after which we take a look in the ferry terminal from which we are supposed to be departing the next day trying to gather any additional info that we might have missed.
Then we move on to the Kauppatori where we buy a platter of fish food from a merchant who is already packing up so we get a discount at least. When moving towards our bench we get attacked by gulls that are trying to make us to drop the food, it feels like we are in a Hitchcock movie. We win our battle and keep the platter almost untouched but the next people are not that lucky so the gulls have a lot of food that afternoon.
Next stop on our walk is the Uspenski Cathedral built in 1868 during the time that Russia was ruling over Finland in a very conspicuous place in the middle of Helsinki.
It is very beautiful both outside and inside and is free to visit. In fact when close to the cathedral we feel almost like in Russia as there is a lot of Russian spoken nearby due to the busloads of Russians visiting the site.
Returning to the hotel we detour to the Senate Square with the imposing Helsinki Cathedral. Unfortunately we cannot visit it as it is already closed.
However the square itself is very expansive with the oldest stone house in Helsinki in one corner which now houses a city museum. There are also a few government buildings and overall it is quite impressive and we spend some time just exploring before moving on.
On the way back we start noticing also little details like many street names having an animal picture next to them, no idea why though. Another thing that we notice is that there are lines in the street with the latin names of plants on them, again a mystery to us what they are marking or celebrating. Quite a few houses also have nice embellishments that we stop to admire.
Arriving at the hotel we prepare the mushrooms that we picked the previous day and eat them as dinner before watching TV which has quite a few good travel shows and gives us some ideas for future trips 😊.
