Helsinki

Wednesday 10th September.

The Scandic Grand Marina is a large hotel that evidently caters to tour groups and conferences. There is one across the road on "Domestic Animal Reproduction". So there are lots of people at the breakfast buffet which is excellent. Scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, ham, salami, cheese, breads croissants etc etc. Look for little tubs of yoghurt but can't find them. Then realise there are two enormous bowls of the stuff with ladles. There seems to be no check on who is having breakfast so I think anyone could walk in off the street and get a free breakfast. Maybe Finns are just naturally honest. 

The Grand Marina Hotel in a Converted Warehouse

After breakfast, I walk down to the Market Square, at the waters edge, which is a hive of activity with traders in yellow tented stalls selling  fur hats, souvenirs and lots of food,  both produce and little cafes. Looks like a good place to come back to when I am hungry. There is also Helsinki's answer to the Singapore Merlion,  a big, ugly, pink, bad boy pissing into the harbour!  

Harbour Front at Helsinki

Bad Bad Boy by Tommi Toija. Helsinki's answer to the Merlion

Berries for Sale in the Market

Further along the quay is a 19th century market building which several cafes and gourmet food stalls inside.  Behind the Market Square is Senate Square which was laid out when the Russian Tsar decided on Helsinki as the capital of his newly acquired duchy. It is a poor man's St Petersburg and was used as a stand-in for Leningrad for films  during the cold war years. St Petersburg doesn't need to worry about the competition! Senate Square is dominated by the snow white Lutheran Church. Inside is a total contrast to all the Orthodox churches I have visited in the past days. Very minimal decoration, rows of pews for a congregation, and a huge organ which is playing classical music. Down in the square I notice many groups on bikes; at one point I think there were four sets neatly stacked .

Lutheran Church Dominating Senate Square

The Organ in the Church

Neatly Stacked Bikes

Walk round more of the city including to the Railway station where I arrived yesterday evening. It is a magnificent building but much of it is covered in scaffolding.  Elsewhere the city has some interesting 20th century architecture, almost all low rise, no buildings over about six floors. It is all very tasteful but it doesn't excite me in the way that Moscow, St Petersburg or even Irkutsk do. I am sure it is a wonderful city in which to live, everything is very civilised but the word "bland" does come to mind.

Tired of walking, I take the figure of 8 tram ride on trams 2 and 3. A flavour of the excitement is the way the guide points out the headquarters of the social security organisation and the tram depot. Meet a very chatty young woman at the No 3 tram stop who is going to  work at a cafe along the route. Later on, after exploring a combined shopping mall and bus station,  I start looking at the map to work out where I am, and a guy asks if I need any help,  so Finns don't seem to deserve their reputation for being cold and reserved. And they all speak fantastic English! Back at the Market Square have a late lunch of Reindeer sausages, meatballs and meat slices. at one of the the Market Stalls. 

In the evening make the mistake of going out rather late for dinner. It is after 9 and the restaurants look empty and/or closed. From the tram, I spot the Hard Rock Cafe, but even there they tell me the kitchen is closed. In the end I get a Balkan Hot Dog,  which is quite good, from a kiosk  and go to a street full of outdoor bars where I have a half litre of their draft beer. All around the city, I see large groups of young people wearing brightly coloured "overall" trousers and or plastic ponchos. Later I learn that they are students and they like to dress up like this when they go out for the evening and play silly games.

It is noticeable that Helsinki is a bit more mixed ethnically than Moscow or St Petersburg although still very "white" compared with any big city in Britain. The Black CIA agent joke would work just as well in Putin's Moscow as in Brezhnev's.

Thursday 11th September.

After another  filling breakfast, spend most of the morning sorting out ferry and hotel for Tallinn. The cheapest ferry is Eckero, which gets good reviews,  but it doesn't sail until 3.30 pm and leaves from the West harbour, which is either a taxi ride or two tram rides from the hotel. Although more expensive, the Viking line ship leaves at 11.30 from a pier just opposite the hotel. I thought it might be easier to walk down to the ferry terminal to buy  a real ticket,  rather than a booking number on the internet which  I need to convert to a paper ticket tomorrow. The young woman at the desk is  very friendly, speaks excellent English,  obviously went to the charm school and books my ticket for me. But I have to pay an extra €5 for her charm and smile, and I still need to exchange my piece of paper for a boarding card tomorrow morning.

Walked over to the market square and took the ferry to Suomenlidden/Sveaborg, the island is dominated by a military fort which was originally built while it was  under Swedish control and later extended by the Russians after took over Finland after one of several wars with Sweden. The price of the ferry was included in my two day travel ticket. "Sveaborg" was the original Swedish name and "Suomenlidden" is the Finnish. 

Ferry to Suomenlidden/Sveaborg

 In a small museum on the island learnt how many wars Finland hs been involve in. I have always thought of Scandinavia  as being fairly peaceful but the history of Finland is dominated by wars. The weather was beautiful so I spent much of the afternoon just wandering around, enjoying the quiet and rural atmosphere in the warm sunshine. 

Military Museum on Suomenlidden/Sveaborg

Following a clearly marked path that connects all the places of interest, I finally arrived at the ramparts and the "Kings Gate " which is where the King of Sweden is reputed to have set foot on the island.  Lots of old canons still guarding the ramparts. There are steps down to the rocks and I looked in the rock pools for signs of life but saw none. 

Suomenlidden/Sveaborg,

Inside the Ramparts at Suomenlidden/Sveaborg,

Shoreline at Suomenlidden/Sveaborg,

Canon at Suomenlidden/Sveaborg,

Rocks at Suomenlidden/Sveaborg,

Realise this is the first open sea I have seen since Vietnam! As I was on the rocks, pretty pink granite which weathers to a dull grey,  I could see a sea mist coming in and by the time I got back on the ramparts the sun was hidden and so it was  a cooler walk back to the ferry terminal. On the ferry back I was pleased to see they had radar since five minutes after we left absolutely nothing was visible in the fog. Went to a Finnish restaurant recommended in the a Helsinki Guide,  near Senate Square but it was full at about 7pm so found another place "Bryggeri"  a microbrewery and restaurant where I had the set menu at 42 Euros and  draft "smoked" lager. The meal was excellent, starter of goat's cheese salad with asparagus and strawberries, main course was salmon, beautifully cooked, so that it had none of the "sticky" texture which salmon can have, and a chocolate cake with ice cream for desert. 

Microbrewery ar "Bryggeri"

Asked the waitress, who speaks perfect English,  how Finns manage to speak English so well,  to which she replied "well, I'm from Australia". Outside the big cities and among the older generation ,she tells me most don't speak any English.  By the time, I left it was dark and distinctly foggy; it's a long time since I have seen real fog. It reminds me of all the films and TV programmes which always show London as foggy so that I have to explain to non English friends that London suffers from fog only VERY rarely these days. 

Foggy Night in Helsinki