Hello Helsinki

Composer Sibelious Sculpture
see all photos »

Today it was a relaxing start to the day. After heading to bed so early last night, I found myself awake at 4am and reading my book for 3 hrs until it was time to get up. The ship was due to dock at 10am, so we had plenty of time to get up, make our way to the buffet breakfast room and then prepare to disembark. Once off the ship it was onto the bus for a morning city tour of Helsinki.

This first took us to the Church of Rock, a Lutheran church that was actually dug into the rock of a hillside. We were unable to enter this church as there was a funeral scheduled in the morning and public access was quite rightly not allowed. It was then on to a local park to view a large stainless steel tubes sculpture dedicated to their famous composer Sibelious. This sculpture represents the Finnish timber forrests which used to provide inspiration to the composer with a bust also located close by.

A race to the Fin(land)-ish

Massive White Lutheran Church
see all photos »

After this we headed around the city with the local tour guide giving us a running commentary of landmarks within the city. We stopped at another church landmark - a large white Lutheran church, which had a large square in front of it with a statue of Russia's Alexander the 2nd at its centre. Finland was under Russian rule at one point and during this time this Russian leader was seen as a friend to the people Finland.

After this the tour guide took us on a short walk to the local farmers market. Here many stalls sold fresh produce and souvenier items, including fur pelts that still had animal heads on them (uughh!). With only 30mins at this time to wander around, we soon had to head back to the bus which took us to our hotel. It was now about 1pm and we were told we had the afternoon at leisure. First and formost our priority was to try and send yet another bag of stuff home to lighten our load. We located the post office and lightened our load (as well as our wallet!). I was desperate to eat so we found a local coffee house and had panini rolls and coffee.

Russian Alexander the 2nd Statue
see all photos »

After this we took our map and tried to situte ourselves, standing on street corner. What I can only describe as a friendly "bum" came up to us and after a minute, pointed exactly to on the map where we were - without us even asking him for help. I had already figured out where we were, but thought it best not to push him away. We quickly thanked him and went on our merry way back towards the Church of Rock, hoping that we could get a look inside. After a wrong turn or two - which is not difficult given that all street names are written in both Swedish and Finnish on each street - we found our way. Admission was allowed and we went inside and it almost felt like we were inside a cave.

Rock Church Temple
see all photos »

We then headed back towards town and decided to have a walk around the main department store. This was seven floors of items across three buildings-it was massive. I wanted to buy a pair of replacement black shoes and Joe wanted to visit the techo section. The shoe project was completed rather quickly, when compared to our expedition to find the techo department. It was supposed to be in the basement but we could not find it. Up and down we went in different buildings trying to find it. Eventually Joe spotted a sign which said entry to this area was only via a single escalator in the cosmetic department. We didn't end up staying long, as there was nothing that took Joe's fancy,

How's this for a place name
see all photos »

Our next project was to find an ATM - which in the local lingo is called an otto, and get some money to exchange into Russian Roubles. The Fins use the Euro which was a relief after having to deal with Danish and Swedish Kronas over the last two days. After a short visit to some other local shopping centres (funnily enough none with any Nokia specialty stores - given Finland is the home of Nokia). We had been advised to bring water with us over the next couple of days, which we picked up at the train station, before heading back to the hotel. We stopped at a mexican restaurant that had great smells coming from it and enjoyed a Finnish Mexican dinner. The day ended with much travel blogging and an early night in preparation for our 5am start tomorrow.