SWEFIN Day 7 - Helsinki 🏊🏼

Hello, fellow travellers, it’s Ellie taking you on todays journey. I woke up today much more sparkly, thank goodness! I went on another trip to find breakfast while Barry went for a run (I don’t understand it either). This morning was a very leisurely one as we have to check out today and then catch a very late night sleeper train this evening, so there was no rush as we ate our ‘seasonal sweet buns’ and sipped tea. Once we’d packed up and handed our rucksacks in, we popped back to the Moomin shop as we’d both decided we wanted a t-shirt. Lots of shops in Helsinki open at 12pm on a Sunday, which we were surprised at, but we only had to wait ten minutes or so and then we were back on our adventures!

We wandered through a new part of the city, down an esplanade with a little park running through the centre. Barry does love a statue and he was in his element here, snapping as many as he could find. I, however, have little interest in statues and so my eyes were free to happen upon another glorious creation - the original Renault Twingo. This is an odd obsession to have but it’s weirdly one that myself and Barry have in common. We just love a Happy Twingo and I will always be excited to see one in Europe as they don’t exist at home. This one was the first I’ve seen on our trip and I was beginning to think they hadn’t made it to the Nordic countries, but there it was: apple green and just happy to be here. It was too quick for me to take a picture but here is one for reference:

You're welcome! 🙂

Next it was time to see something that is a key part of the Helsinki skyline: Tuomiokirkko Cathedral, which is Lutheran, like the church we visited in Stockholm. It looks very dramatic against the blanket of grey clouds and we stopped a while to take it in. We found a side entrance and wandered in, only to find it seemed to be ‘bring your child to work day’ for the organist. It was so dreadful that multiple people were struggling to hold in giggles. We loved it, it made church much more of a fun prospect.

The next holy building we came across was Uspenski Cathedral, which is an Eastern Orthodox Church. This one is much grander looking on the inside and there were far more rules. It was completely silent.

Time for lunch! We found a market on the harbour selling different kinds of foods. I opted for a savoury crepe and Barry went for a reindeer sausage with potatoes and veggies.

Next it was time to ride the third ferris wheel of the trip. We can’t help it, we’re a ferris wheel couple. It was called the Sky Wheel and it sits right on the harbour and offers great views across the city. Henning had a great time.

This area of the city offers a few different experiences, one of which we hadn’t heard about but decided to do anyway. The Flying Cinema offered something like a Soarin’ (Epcot) experience but focusing on Finland. we paid the man, had a drink at the bar and went into the theatre. The film was about 12 minutes long and took us all over Finland. It rained and snowed on us and told us lots of fun facts - which we love. Did you know that Finland is the most water rich AND  the most heavily forested in Europe?

Over the road was the one thing that I’d found for us to do here, which is an open air swimming pool! We had our swimmies with us, rented towels and paid the entrance fee (a little pricey at £60 euros in total!). This gave us three hours to use the facilities, which included a sauna! The swim was lovely as the pool is heated and you could see both cathedrals and the ferris wheel. There is an option to also use the sea pool, which of course is just the sea water as it comes, which we were both too afraid to do. Finns were merrily hopping in and then going straight to the sauna. We spent some time in the sauna too, which had a big window looking out over the water and you could see the boats coming and going. It really was well worth doing.

The pool complex had a cafe, restaurant and bar all piled one on top of the other. We decided to head to the rooftop bar for a cocktail to pass the time, as the train we are catching tonight leaves at 11pm and it was now only around 5pm. We all had a lovely time watching the boats.

It was eventually about time we headed in the general direction of our dinner at Jackie’s pizzaria, which offered delicious pizza and funky tunes, before taking an evening stroll together by the lake that Barry ran around this morning. A full circle moment!

Now to wait for the train to LAPLAND!!

Night friends!