Monday 26th June
Our first impressions of Helsinki were most favourable. It was a 30 minute taxi ride from the airport to our apartment and the drive into town revealed a rather clean, well organised and lovely city. Just FYI: the population of Finland is comparable to Sydney, Australia and that of Helsinki is rather similar to Adelaide, just to give the Aussies some context here.
Our apartment, located on the edge of the Kamppi district, was of a good size, nicely laid out and very comfortable for our 4-night stay. Our host greeted us on arrival and explained there was a local market hall just a few minutes walk away and a supermarket just a few more after that. The market hall, Hietalahden Kauppahalli, proved to be a great find. It was described online as an ‘atmospheric cafe and restaurant hall that offers a taste trip around the world’ and that is exactly what it was, and, right on our doorstep. It was like a smaller scale Lisbon Time Out market and something we often lamented would be a great asset at home in Bondi. We both had a coffee and shared a croissant at one of the inside cafes before heading across to the supermarket. Just FYI. It was the best skim ice latte I’ve had since leaving Australia.
The supermarket was an interesting experience. We were able to work out the milk ok but the yoghurt proved to be a bit of a challenge. Luckily the beer and the wine were easier to sort for Mark.
Our apartment had not been my first choice. I had changed rather recently from a smaller one located closer to downtown to the current one which was a bit more suburban but much nicer, brighter and bigger. We were in a more residential area of Helsinki and about 1 km from the touristy part of the city but we ventured downtown, to where my original choice of apartment was located, to check out the neighbourhood. I had worried that we were a bit too far out from the main part of the action but, once we saw the ‘action’, I was glad of our location.
Feeling very tired after our long stint of travel and too tired to do much more exploring, we headed back to the food markets to have a drink and an early dinner and found ourselves immersed in with what seemed to be locals from the area. The atmosphere at Hietalahden Kauppahall was more laid back, less touristy and much more to our liking. We stayed in the outdoor area for our aperitivo and then dinner at Fat Ramen.
It had been a long day after our day and a half of travel and we were exhausted but so very glad to be here in Helsinki. There’s just such a different level of sophistication here compared to North America, even at the humble suburban area and food market!. The sun sets at 10:50 pm and rises at 3:56 am so we might be in for some interesting days 🙂
Tuesday 27th June
The change in time zones had got to us a bit and so neither of us ended up waking until 8 am, that was after spending several hours awake during the night though. We had a walking tour starting at 11 and headed out near 10 am to do a bit more exploring before the start of the tour. We walked down the pretty tree-lined Bulevardi to the older area of downtown and you could be forgiven for thinking you had just stepped out in Paris. Helsinki is absolutely beautiful! There are lots of cobblestones though so make sure you bring your sand-shoes if you visit.
Our guide for the Original Free Walking Tour of Helsinki 2hr walking tour was a young uni student, Rebecca, and she was excellent; she was a bit younger than our Tom and we think she did a great job. Rebecca took our group of about 15 around the key sites of the city and gave us a fairly comprehensive potted history of Finland.
Some points I found interesting are outlined below:
- Finland has two official languages: Finnish and Swedish
- Finland was initially part of Sweden: for over 600 years
- There was a territorial battle in 1809 between Sweden and Russia and Russia won, claiming rights to, what is now, Finland
- The Russian Tsar at the time felt the newly claimed area was too close to Sweden so in 1812 developed ‘Helsinki’ as a new capital
- The Finnish Cathedral in Central Square was built by the Russians for the Swedish religion (Lutheran) and designed by a German architect: multicultural!
- The Senate Square in Finland was created to be similar to St Petersburg of Russia
- Finland was liberated from Russians in 1917 during fallout of WW1.
The walking tour finished up near 1 pm and we headed over to the Old Market Hall for lunch and tried the traditional salmon soup which was absolutely delicious. This Old Market Hall was not all that different to the concept of the Hietalahden Kauppahall markets near our apartment but was much more up-market.
It was such a beautiful day that we decided to spend the afternoon taking a 90 minute cruise around the harbour and this was a good opportunity for us to rest our legs, as they had been getting a decent workout over recent days and weeks. This was another great activity as we got to see further afield than what we could have done on foot and we got to view the city out from the water. The boat meandered its way through just a few of Finland’s 76,000 islands (those having an area of > 0.5 ha) and the archipelago also boasts more than 56,000 lakes (those having an area >1 ha). The other interesting feature I discovered on this cruise was that there are no significant tides of note in Finland, just a few centimeters, as it lies within the Baltic Sea and the Baltic Sea has minimal tides as it is an enclosed basin.
It was heading on to 3 pm by the time the harbour cruise finished and we wandered towards home with two final stops. First was at the 14th floor Ataljee roof top bar that has great views over the city and this was worth the visit just to go to the toilet. One toilet cubicle has three massive windows offering an almost 180 degree view across the city. The second stop was back to the supermarket to source some food for dinner as we planned on having a quiet night dining in.
On our way home we strolled through a lovely park and it was so nice to see the place being used by young people and families, relaxing and having picnics, rather than being filled with poor homeless folk and occupied by tent cities as has become the normal in so many North American parks that we have encountered over the last two months. We just keep giving thanks we are here; especially after our last month of travel in the USA.
You know what they say about best laid plans. Our plan to have a quiet home cooked dinner evaporated as we both couldn’t be bothered cooking. So we went downstairs to Cafferino Oba, just on the corner of our block, and shared a mezze plate. Maybe tomorrow night we will cook dinner for ourselves?
