Helsinki, Finland -Scandinavia Part 5 (July 9-16, 2023)

Sunday, July 9, 2023.  We flew from Oslo to Helsinki landing in Helsinki around 4 pm. We got to our next (and final) Airbnb in the neighborhood of Kamppi which is just west of downtown Helsinki.  

We had a cute Airbnb in really old building. Very typical Finnish apartment.  

Front doors from the street

Hallway to the elevator/stairs

TINY elevator

Outer door

Inside apartment, notice the inner door

Living room/Kitchen

Kids bedroom

Adults bedroom

By Finnish standards, this was a spacious apartment.  2 bedrooms, one bath and a living room/kitchen.  It was perfect for our last week.  We stayed for 6 nights.    This was the last week of our 4 week trip and the girls and I were SOO ready to be in one place for a while.  We packed up and moved 13 times in 3 weeks.  It was a lot.  So to be able to be in one place for 6 nights was a luxury.  

The apartment was also very centrally located.  It was only a few blocks to two tram stops and the trams got us anywhere we needed to go.  Our stop was about 5 stops from the central train station and trams ran every few minutes.  

Monday, July 10, 2023.  We headed down to the Market Square (tori) on our first day in Helsinki. We stopped at Senate Square first to see the big white church.

We had lunch at Market Square...

... Lihapiirakka which is a meat pie.  The girls weren't as excited about it as James and I,

so I got them Nakki (Finnish hot dog)  which they also only sort of liked.

We bought some fresh wild blueberries to eat with lunch along with strawberries, peas and potatoes to take home for dinner.  The berries in Finland are so delicious and like no other place I know.  In the 2 weeks we were in Finland, we had at least 6 liters of Finnish strawberries. 

We shopped for souvenirs 

had a crepe

walked through the Kauppatori

where we had Tippaleipa (it was ok).

I wanted to sit and relax for a while at Esplanade which is a long park in Helsinki. We listened to a band for a few minutes...

 

...and found ourselves at our next treat stop, the Fazer Cafe.

Then on to Stockmann to pick up bread, karjalanpiirakka and chicken for dinner.

I made a delicious dinner at the apartment,

we rested a few hours then the girls talked me into one last trip to Prisma. There is not a Prisma in the city center so we had to take the tram to the central station and a commuter train to a suburb. They were on the hunt for two last Moomin stuffed animals.  

Luckily we found what we were looking for.  See....the gangs all here. And we actually added 2 more from Stockmann before coming home.

As always. we were super late getting to bed.  I blame the midnight sun.  This is what the sky looked like when I finally turned in around 12:30 am.

Tuesday, July 11, 2023.  After breakfast we went back to Market Square to catch a water taxi to Soumenlinna which is a world heritage site. It is a Sea Fortress built in the 1800s.  

   

We stopped for lunch first at a cute outdoor cafe

and after waiting for almost an hour, they told us they were out of hamburgers (only had one left)  So, James had a different sandwich, Ani had a hamburger and Elin and I went to the K-Supermarket and got stuff for a picnic lunch. We were good at improvising meals by this point in our trip.

We walked around the island

We went through the war museum

and the toy museum.  We loved the old Moomin's.

We headed back to the harbor after a stop for "ice-cream-o-clock"

then took a water taxi back to city center.

The view from the water coming back into Market Square is one of my favorites

From Market Square it's a quick walk to the Uspenski Cathedral

then we caught the tram back to city center to find somewhere to eat dinner.

We ended up having Italian and then listening to a Scottish band play at the Esplanade stage.  I would have like to stay longer and listen, but there was nowhere to sit and we were tired from a full day of walking.

Wednesday, July 12, 2023.  After a yummy breakfast....

...we went to Hakeniemi for more shopping time.  We had lunch nearby

then walked up the street to Kallio which is where my mother grew up.

I wanted my girls to see where their grandmother lived. She told me "across from the bear park and the fire station".   In this picture the fire station is directly behind the tram.

I think it was one of these buildings?  Without my mother there I wasn't exactly sure, but we were on the right street.

We also stopped into the Kallio church where my mother went to church as a child.   It is a beautiful building.

We walked around the neighborhood on our way back to the tram. James wanted to see oldest wood burning sauna in Helsinki .  It was closed for stove renovation when we were there or we would have gone to sauna.

A short walk and tram ride took us to the Temppeliaukio Church often called the "Rock Church" because it is built in a rock.   

It was very peaceful and quiet in the church.  We looked in a few shops

before having a little quiet time at the apartment.   I wanted to spend the evening in Kaivopuisto Park, Helsinki's oldest park, on the southern side of Helsinki.   We stopped by the store to pick up a few items for a picnic dinner. 

We sat on a park bench across from the water to eat...

...then we walked along the waters edge back towards the city center.  It was the perfect night for a stroll.

We found our favorite ice cream

the girls herded some geese

and we continued walking until we got almost to Market Square

then we took the tram home.

We didn't get back to the apartment until around 10:30.  Look how light it still was...

...and how tiny the elevator was.

Thursday, July 13, 2023.  I actually got the girls up before 10 am and we went downtown for more shopping. It takes a while to find all the things we were looking for.   James tells everyone that we basically shopped our way through Scandinavia...which is true.  

 

We met back up at the apartment just after lunch. We had a reservation to go to Lonna Island to sauna.  Lonna has a wood fired, old fashioned sauna...right on the sea.  Normally, it is a 15 minute water taxi from Market Square to Lonna, but, President Biden was in Helsinki on that day so we had to catch the water taxi from Kalasatama which required the metro then a walk to catch the boat.

So, instead 20-30 minutes, it took us about 2 hours.  But we did get to see another area of Helsinki and we had a nice boat ride.

This is what Lonna looks like from the air (picture from the internet)

We were there a little early (sauna reservation at 4:30 pm) so we had ice cream and waffles while we waited

then went to our sauna appointment.

After check in we changed into swimsuits....which were optional...but everyone had one on which my girls were very happy about. I had warned them ahead of time.

It was a beautiful setting for a sauna.  

There was a window in the sauna to watch passing ships.  And the sauna was SO hot...perfectly hot.  Every few minutes someone would throw more water on the stove to heat it up more.  I attempted to get into the sea...but I got in up to my ankles and my feet were literally frozen so I just splashed water on the rest of my body and headed back to the heat.  Because of the rocks and his hip, James didn't attempt it and opted for a cold shower instead.  

The sauna looks like this from the sea (picture from internet)

and the inside looks like this on the second level (pic from internet). The bottom level was for washing.

We didn't really find any tourists besides ourselves at this sauna.  Mostly Finns and one Canadian.  Although pictures were not allowed, I did take a few but made sure not to disturb anyone.

The girls were skeptical about trying it at first but ended up staying in as long as James and I did, and we all loved it.  It was so peaceful.  I was happy that James was able to experience a sauna this way since he had to miss the lake house. 

We had dinner in Kalasatama before taking the metro back to the apartment.

Friday, July 14, 2023.  Last day in Helsinki.  We had breakfast in the apartment, then headed down on the tram to look for t-shirts and buy ALL THE candy to take home.  We stopped by the public library where they had a cafe called Maija 

then had lunch on the top floor of Stockmann. I had for the buffet lunch, which was delicious.  

We found t-shirts and bought some jewelry at Aarikka then hung out at Esplanade park.  It was a beautiful day. A lady was blowing huge bubbles so we watched her for a while and she even let Elin try it.  Anikka just wanted to pop the bubbles.

We met up with my cousin Tiina at the Fazer Cafe. I had not seen her in 40 years and it was fun to catch up.  When I came to Finland the first time at 11, she was my play mate and traveled with my Mom and I.

We walked to Stockmann to buy lots and lots of candy and something for dinner.

On our last evening we had dinner in the apartment and lots of packing.   Amazingly we fit everything… I did have an extra bag we put all the clothes in.  

Helsinki has always been one of my very favorite cities.  I loved it just as much this time and I was so happy my girls got to experience Finland in two ways...the countryside and the city.  Both are equally fun for different reasons.  

Saturday, July 15, 2023.   Headed home finally. Day 29 for the girls and I. Day 15 for James.  Everyone was ready to sleep in their own beds, although we had 2 days of travel ahead of us.  We took a taxi to the airport

a stop in the Moomin store to spend their last few dollars

and a little relax time in the lounge before boarding our 9 hr 45 min flight to Chicago.

An interesting thing happened on this flight.  We were a few hours into the trip and the Captain came on and told us we had to circle for a "little while"  because the airspace in Iceland was closed and they were looking for another way to route the plane.  At one point, the plane turned back towards Finland and I was worried we would have to go back to Helsinki and get rebooked. But after about an hour, we turned back around, Iceland airspace was open again and we went on our way. It did add an extra hour to the flight

but we had a view of Greenland which was pretty.

We landed in Chicago around 6 pm on the same Saturday as we left...passport control, customs and a taxi to an airport hotel where we had dinner and tried to sleep. No one really slept on the plane so we were all very tired, but with jet lag we were all up by 4 am.  

Sunday, July 16, 2023.  We had a morning flight from Chicago to Denver and were back home around noon.  So happy to be home and SOOOOO tired.

____________________

What an amazing experience we had on this month long trip.  Some parts were hard, other parts amazing and some just so tiring. I saw this quote somewhere along our travels and thought it was perfect.

And that is exactly what we did. First as a "girls trip" and then as a family.   I am grateful for the experiences we had and all the new things my girls learned.  

Will we do it again?   Definitely.  There is whole world to explore and we want to see it ALL.

Maija