Escaping Summer We've never been so happy to only sleep to 7am, after barely staying awake to 8pm local time, it means our body clocks are somewhat adjusting to being 9 hours back in time.
Despite it being 9 degrees (and feeling like 3 degrees outside), inside our apartment is toasty warm, to the point where we had to open a window.
After a delicious and childhood memory inducing breakfast of Finnish rye bread (ruisleipä) and coffee we set off to one of the most touristy tourist destinations in Helsinki: Suomenlinna (“Castle of Finland”).
Helsinki has something like 330 islands that are part of it. Suomenlinna is one of those islands and is also a fortress. It was built by this guy, Augustin Ehrensvärd in 1748:
Unsurprisingly, a Swedish guy from the 18th century didn’t look like a Roman soldier from the 1st century but its a pretty cool grave.
For a military fort, Suomenlinna is quite pretty. The south end of it provides a nice panorama of the Gulf of Finland towards Estonia along with nostril freezing gusts that blast your face with fresh Baltic winds.
After Suomenlinna it was time for a mound of reindeer meat for me and Lohikeito (creamy Salmon soup) for Cassie, not as gross as they might sound (unless you’re vegan).
Two things really stood out about Helsinki:
- There are very few buildings that are larger than 6 or 7 stories, and
- There is largely no littering. People here seem to respect the environment. Or maybe the day-fine system really works (where people are fined according to how much income they earn). Either way, it was nice to take a walk thru a park and not get angry at people for treating the planet as their own personal garbage dump.
We then worked off the meat comas by taking a walk thru Kaivopuisto at the southern end of the city. But since we’d been walking most of the day we hired some electric scooters and got a little taste of trying to drive on the wrong side of the road (going anti-clockwise around a roundabout is just wrong). After finishing our Evel Knievel impressions, it was time to head back home to rest before dinner, sauna, and then sleep.