Day 9: Friday 21st August
Another good thing about the campsite is that it is right next door to Rastila metro station so no hassle trying to drive in and park the van for sightseeing. We buy €6.80 tourist tickets for the city’s transport system but barely use them, doing the city centre on foot apart from a ferry trip over to the Suomenlinna Fortress in the bay.
Ferries for the Suomenlinna Fortress (World Heritage Site) go every 20 minutes from near the Market Square. The fortress was built in the eighteenth century on six islands and is well worth a visit, both for the buildings and ambience and for the excellent museum at the Visitor Centre including a film tracing the history of the place. Descriptions in the museum are translated into English.
Then back to Helsinki and a walk around the historic centre looking at the architecture which is very fine (the same nineteenth-century architects designed buildings in both Helsinki and in St Petersburg). In the very centre is Senate Square housing the magnificent Helsinki Cathedral – neoclassical style, though relatively plain inside owing to its Lutheran tradition. By contrast the Uspenski Cathedral, the other side of the Market Square, is sumptuous both inside and out; it’s said to be the largest Orthodox church in Western Europe. The third church we visit is a little way out of the city centre – the Temppeliaukio Church (Evangelical), quarried out of the natural bedrock in the 1960s (?) – again, well worth seeing. Other buildings we see and admire include Helsinki City Hall (originally built as a – very grand – hotel), Sederholm House (the oldest surviving stone building in the city centre, at one corner of Senate Square), Finlandia Hall and the famous quirkily designed Central Railway Station.
There’s a cultural festival on today and the big square in front of the cathedral is being readied for an evening rock concert. Around the town there are other activities going on, including more performance stages. Another is a horde of students parading in fancy dress through the city centre. In the modern town hall foyer a group are preparing a big flower display.
Now to find a meal. Helsinki is expensive: our meal (one course only, the cheapest on the menu – sardine-like fish + liver/bacon and one glass of wine + tap water) costs £20 each. No tip!
Helsinki is geared to tourists, clearly trying to be welcoming and easy as a city to visit, but we felt it lacked warmth. Like the Norwegians, people in Helsinki avoid eye contact and are reserved – for example, at no point did we see the waiters and waitresses exchanging smiles, looks, or words. This appears to be the Scandinavian temperament, and it does affect the tourist experience.
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