Day 61: Helsinki, Finland

Well, our Asian experience came to an end today as we took our car to the airport at 8am to catch a flight to Helsinki, Finland. The flight was about 8 hours but we picked up 5 hours on the journey so the jet lag is a little easier to deal with. Getting to our hotel in Helsinki by 4pm gave us enough time to grab a map and we did a brief walking tour of the city to get acquainted with the area before dinner.

Finland got its name from French sailors during the Middle Ages, who called the usually cold, icebound harbors of the region "el fin des landes" (the end of the land). Finland is located halfway between Stockholm, Sweden and St. Petersburg, Russia and was founded by the Swedish king Gustavus Vasa (1550) when looking for a buffer zone from the "Russian menace". Finland has a history of being part of Sweden (1249-1809) and also part of the Russian Empire (1809-1917) until 1917 when Finland declared independence from Russia (plenty of warring in between). Finnish and Swedish are the main languages with English spoken widely. Russian architecture and influence still remains.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland

Here are some photos we took during our walking tour.


(Our Hotel)




(The Helsinki Railway Station)


(The Esplanadi, main shopping/cafe strip with a large divider for strolling. Once a political dividing line where the Finns walked on the south side and Swedes on the north.)


(The harbor)


(The Senate Square with The Lutheran Cathedral in the background. The monument in the square is dedicated to Russian tsar Alexander II, designed in the early 1800's)


(The Russian Orthodox Uspenski Cathedral)


(St. John's Church)

We stopped for a beer/coffee on our route, then went to dinner at a place called the Sea Horse, which was recommend by a friend of a friend. It was a great choice, we tried some authentic Finnish dishes including a new favorite 'vorschmack'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorschmack

On the way home we stopped for a beer when we heard some live music coming from a bar down some random alleyway.



BTW, the sun doesn't set until 10:40pm this time of year, so even at 11pm the sky is still lit up. And the sun rises at 4am, so there is barely 5 hours of nighttime here this time of year.

FJ