Exploring Helsinki ( 21 photos )
It has been nice not driving at all today - the last time we did that was in Bergen, which seems like quite a long time ago now. Instead, we have been giving our three day Helsinki tourist travel card a workout, travelling on the Metro and buses all around the city.
We caught first the Metro then a Bus this morning, taking us in the cheapest possible way to Helsinki Zoo. We spent a pleasant few hours wandering around the place. In some ways it was great - there were some interesting animals you wouldn't see in many other places, but in other ways it was quite disappointing. For instance, many of the animals were nowhere to be seen, leaving us to wander if they were there at all, or just had signs for people to read about them, look aimlessly around the enclosure for a while, then keep walking.
But by far the biggest disappointment was in that they had no moose! Imagine this - you are a tourist from a far-off land, and every two kilometres or so for the last five thousand you have driven, there have been signs saying "look out for moose!". Yet, you haven't seen even one. So, you decide that it's cheating a bit, but perhaps you can see one at the zoo. You fork over your cash, wander around in the heat for a while, and then learn that their enclosure is undergoing renovations so they aren't there!!! Oh well, worse things could have happened, and for now my stuffed toy moose will have to do.
So, back into town to begin our wander around. First to the Tourist Information to ask plenty of questions - where is an Internet café which will let us plug the laptop in? Ferries to Tallinn? Ferries to Stockholm? The poor girl did a great job, and according to her badge, could have done so in six different languages. We read our emails there while waiting in the queue which was nice.
We headed to the café which ended up having wireless net access, but which was a very expensive pay for 24 hours one which we didn't really want to do. So, we had a nice lunch snack there before heading on.
This took us back through the impressive Senaatintori (Senate Square), which is totally dominated by the huge Tuomiokirkko - a Church. When we first saw this yesterday as we wandered around the corner, we were both a little lost for words. Apparently this square is used by third-rate film-makers when they want an "authentic" Russian look.
Which reminds me, we would be very keen to take a side-trip into St Petersburg (only about 300km from here) were it not for both of us needing visas which take about twelve days to process at the least.
Further south to the Fish/Produce/Tourist Garbage market, we wandered around for a little while, purchased our Finland fridge magnet (we have one from each country we have been to), then some raspberries which we ate by the water. There was a strange, perhaps not-quite-all-there busker who was hitting pots and pans near us, enough to make us move onwards.
Deciding to be just a little organsied for a change, we jumped on to part of Lonely Planet's Helsinki walking tour. This lead us through plenty of interesting places, including the Havis Amanda Fountain and Mermaid Statue, Market Square, which is regarded as one of the symbols of Helsinki. Then along Esplanade Park - a long thin strip of parkand which stretches for several blocks along the city, where huge numbers of people were out enjoying the sunshine.
About here we cheated a bit and jumped on a tram to continue our "walking tour". Picking one at random, and having no idea where it went (everything in Finland is in both Finnish and Swedish, as there are two official languages), I followed our path through the city on our map, trying to pick out the tiny street signs they have here as we actually ended up almost exactly where we wanted to be - the Olympic Stadium from the 1952 Olympics which were held here.
First though, we wandered past the much newer Finnair Stadium, where the FIFA Under-17 World Cup is currently being held, before approaching the older stadium. Here, dechyphering the security guard's broken English we discovered that the National Athletic Championships was currently in progress, so we couldn't just wander in for a look around.
Being half-tempted by sitting back and watching other people play sport, we wandered down to the gate to enquire of the ticket price, but decided fifteen euro (still haven't found that on my keyboard) a bit much. However, walking through the stalls set up outside the gates, we spied an outdoor beach volleyball tournament taking place. No-one challenged us as we walked in and took seats right by the ring (even passing the balls back when they went out), and spent an hour or so watching various teams play, relaxing in the sun like so many Finns also seemed to be doing, the Olympic Stadium in the background.
Back on the tram, our walking tour finished for the moment (we have seen most of it when combined with the looking around we did last night), we needed some food, and found it at Eatz. The snacky bar-food filled us well and fairly cheaply, and was washed down with a bit of the local brew. Well, you have to try things in these cities...
Just across the road to the train station, we came back to the caravan park, showered, and are about to head to bed.
(customised)