Today we want to visit Suomenlinna also known as Sveaborg (Castle of the Swedes), an impressive fortress built by the Swedes to protect against the Russians and then renamed by the Finns after getting control of it. As the fortress is on an island we have to take a ferry to it, a small inconvenience for an Unesco World Heritage site.
The ferry is quite full and passes cruise ships and islands on the short hop to the fortified fortress.
We soon arrive and after disembarking want to start exploring. But we are distracted by the beautiful geese nearby, there are a lot of Barnacle Geese some with chicks nearby and this is the first time we have seen them.
And then we enter the fortress, it is much more austere than the usual embellished castles, this one was built only for battle not to house royalty or nobility.
Still it has its own beauty with interesting buildings and fortifications everywhere many of which cannot be entered however. Still we explore as much as we can from the outside as we hop between the islands exploring as much as we can.
It is an interesting mix between the austere military buildings and barracks and the flowering meadows just outside enjoyed by birds and humans alike.
There are a few buildings that can be visited including the church built for the Russian soldiers that garrisoned here during the occupation of Finland. There are also visitors everywhere which makes sense given that it is the weekend.
There are many harbors and coves that were and are used by boats previously military and now private trying to reach or protect the island.
There are also tunnels that can be explored and we do just that. This is similar to other late era fortresses, there are lots of tunnels to protect against intense bombardment.
One of the more interesting sights is the dry dock, we haven’t seen one before. This is where ships can be brought to be repaired even below the water line. There aren’t many ships now but it certainly was used more during the military times. In fact the dry dock in Suomenlinna is the oldest in Finland and one of the oldest operational dry docks in Europe, quite interesting.
We also explore the nature on the islands as much as we can. There are surprisingly many secluded coves here, likely they were more protected when this was a secret military base.
We can see lots of those defenses across the fortress, besides the walls and masonry there are lots of guns, huge guns. Thesewere likely to protect both the fortress and Helsinki from attack from the sea.
Another interesting artifact is the Vesikko Submarine one of the five to serve in the Finnish Navy against the Russians in World War 2 sinking one Russian merchant ship. After the war the Finnish were prohibited to have any submarines so after some adventures it was saved as a museum piece and placed in Suomenlinna. And then we are getting hungry and it seems we have finished exploring so it is time to return back to the mainland to find a restaurant for dinner.
