Helsinki - it's cold really only in wintertime

 

The Linux developer, the Linu in Linux, Linus Torvalds says of Helsinki:

Helsinki isn't all that bad. It's a very nice city, and it's cold really only in wintertime.

Which is faint praise, but here we are in summertime and the city is warm and welcoming. It was 20C (68F) this afternoon, slightly overcast, but dry all the same.

Before we get into the detail of Helsinki, a review of the way the day began.

Morning

I woke in Tallinn and after the hot, busy day with plenty of travel yesterday, I had a really amazing sleep. I didn't wake until 6am. 10.15pm to 6am is the longest sleep of the holiday! 

Without a kettle or coffee machine in the room, we got up did our ablutions and were ready for breakfast by 7.15am. The Rixwell hotels (this is our second hotel of the brand) start breakfast at 7am not the 6.30am we have become used to on this holiday, but this was no disconvenience today.

Breakfast 

Pickles are still the order of the day in Estonia, as with the last four countries we have visited. They had pickled peppers, mushrooms, gherkins and herring, it was delightful. I was also impressed by the fact they had both types of rye bread - a perfect way to compare them, I loved them both!

The Veg section

The Bread's section

Drew's Breakfast

Haydn's Breakfast

Upper Town Tallinn 

We went back to our room and feeling fresh after the sleep and at the much cooler 65F in the morning after the 85F of yesterday, we decided to use this morning to go to the Upper Town which we had not quite managed to climb up to yesterday. 

The route was as follows:

We began by walking through Lower Town and to the steep steps which lead to Upper Town. 

The first place we come across is the Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, even early in the morning worshippers were streaming to the church for prayer - hence the photos are of the outside only.

We then found ourselves outside the Parliament of Estonia building which is almost at the centre of Upper Town. 

Further along the road we came to Toom-Kooli Street and the ancient, now Lutheran, Cathedral of Tallinn dedicated to Our Lady. Though it was Catholic for most of its life, it has been part of the Lutheran Church since that was established and took root in Estonia. 

Given the location of the Old Town it is no surprise that there are many viewing platforms. These are the views from the one called Kohtuotsa. You can even see the boats in the dock from up here.

As we progressed around Upper Town we came to Government Buildings and embassies from most countries in the world. 

Back down to Lower Town

There were a few places we'd not made it to in Lower Town yesterday, so having done our circuit of Upper Town we went back down 

no metaphor here, downtown is actually down a steep slope.

We visited St Olaf's Church, more for its name and connection to Disney's Frozen [Co-Pilot's Note: "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" - Video to sing along]than for any other reason, but it is a large church with a tall steeple. 

Around the corner from here we come to the former KGB prison - it is conveniently (for the staff not the residents) linked above road level to the Internal Affairs office, which is Soviet days would have been the place where potential political prisoners were first taken for interrogation before crossing over to the prison.

I suspect it is because of its history as a Soviet Socialist Republic within the USSR, that Estonia seems very opposed to the war in Ukraine. As we saw as we past the Russian Embassy.

Ferry Cross the Baltic

Our Ferry crossing to Helsinki is at 12.15pm. We returned to the hotel by 10am and by 10.15am were on our way. Our online tickets are our boarding passes, so once we arrive at the ferry terminal we are able to go into the waiting area.

Haydn on his way to the terminal - with two cases so Drew could take the photos

Old City Terminal - Tallinn

The Waiting Area

We have a bottle of water each as we wait and at 11.50am we start boarding and are away by 12.15pm.

It is a large ferry of the traditional roll on roll off type. There are many cars and lorries on boards, but also a lot of foot passengers. 

We find a cafe and set-up to use the ships wifi. It seems strange to be creating the Parish Newsletter for next Sunday while sitting on a boat going from Tallinn to Helsinki!!

Newsletter complete I went on to work on the blog about Berlin to Warsaw, catching up with the blog is proving a challange this holiday when we are on the move so much. Thanfully OneNote lets me take notes as I go, so the core content is ready, only needing some flourishes, links and photos. 

Helsinki

We arrived in Helsinki at 2.15pm and made immediate use of one of our mobile apps. This one HSL (Helsingin seudun liikenne) which provides for mobile ticketing across Helsinki. The 24 hour ticket was £9. We had bought them while on the boat and made them active on arrival. Meaning we could head straight for the Tram (no 9) towards the city centre. Rather than joining the lengthy queue at the tram ticket machines at the harbour.  

On the tram we quickly learn Helsinki is a bilingual city - Finnish and Swedish - everywhere we go both are present.

Finnish Destination

Swedish Destination

Drew and Case on the Number 9 Tram

Holiday Inn City Centre

The Holiday Inn in Helsinki City Centre is a really lovely hotel. Right next to the Helsinki central station it has access to the rail, tram, metro and bus network for the whole of the city and beyond.

View as we get off the tram

We check in and make it up to our 7th floor room which overlooks the main city centre square. 

Having arrived and settled into the room we head out for a walk - this is some of the sites from our first walk in the city. 

It was helpful to get to know a little of the city and, having stopped for a coffee 

we caught a bus back ready to shower and prepare for dinner. This was the No 7 from Kallion Virastotalo back to the Central Station (Helsingin Päärautatieasema).

Dinner 

Drew had been looking at places to eat in Helsinki and suggested we might explore the option of earing a Lappish (Sami meal) this seemed like a great idea. We looked at booking the restaurant as soon as we arrived, they had no early tables but could serve us at 8pm - so we agreed to that. At 7.25pm we left the hotel and headed to the Metro station to take our third form of Helsinki travel since arriving. As Helsinki charged €3.10 per ticket for any journey our Metro (underground) 2 ticket to Kamppi meant we would have spent €9.30 already if we hadn't bought the day ticket, so are the right side of the ledger. 

Lappi Ravintola

Lappi Ravintola (Ravintola means restaurant) was the first Lappi-inspired restaurant in the centre of Helsinki and they do a good job.

The decor is designed to indicate a Lappish family tent and the windows are replaced with images of the Northern Lights - very common in those areas of Northern Finland.

The food is different from any I've tasted before but served and presented with real care.

Going 'all-in' as the waiter said, we opted for a shared starter of Valikoima Lapin herkkuja Kahdelle - An assortment of Lappish delicacies for two. These delicacies were Salmon tartar, fishroe, reindeer carpaccio, air dried reindeer, wild mushroom salad, marinated ciscoes, farm cheese and cloudberries. Each had a distinctive flavour, with the air-dried reindeer reminding me of jerky, the farm cheese squeaking as I eat it and the ciscoes, a northern European fish found in colder waters was juicy with vinegar and pepper - a wonderful introduction to the flavours of the peoples of Northern Finland, Sweden and Norway.

We had dark rye bread and rye crackers, rye being one of the few grains that is hardy enough in the higher climbs 

I think our empty board at the end indicates how much we enjoyed it. 

Our mains were Riistalauta kahdelle - Lappish game selection for two. This was Roasted elk, reindeer sausages from Raattama, winter vegetables and potato fondant with game sauce. We took the meal from both sides to best represent it. The vegetable were carrots and parsnip, each of the meats and distinctive flavours. Elk, it is no surprise, is very like the Moose meat I've eaten in Canada. Reindeer sausages taste just like venison sausages, but each was cooked really well and the potato fondant was delicious, with the amazing tangy sauce.

For Dessert Drew tried the Blueberry Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream. The blueberries were fresh and were all through the cake, the ice cream was one of the best Drew has tasted. The waiter joked that they ought to be good at ice-cream where they come from, as ice is the most common form of water!

It is not normal for me to have dessert, but having enjoyed the cheese in the starters I hoped that Lappish Farm cheese in Cinnamon cream with Cloudberry jam would be more savoury than sweet - I love the taste of cinnamon and cloudberrys are among the sharpest of the berries. Well, when it arrived cinnamon cream was a name for a very weak custard! Thankfully Drew was there to help me out, so I could extract the cheese, which was as good as I hoped, and Drew could spoon up the custard!

We caught the M1, metro, back to Rautatientori (City Centre) at 9.55pm, got back to the hotel and were in bed by 11pm. A busy, but remarkably enjoyable day.