Helsinki, Finland

One of the benefits of my trip to Tallinn was going to be the opportunity to go to Helsinki for the day.  Not only would it let me go to Finland for the first time, it would be significantly less expensive than staying there!

Getting there was straightforward enough.  I got the 8am ferry from Tallinn – a passenger only fast ferry from Linda Line.  This got me in at about 9:40, from which I went via the Old Market Hall to the tourist information office to buy a Helsinki Card.  Now, this cost more for one day than three cost for the equivalent card in Tallinn, but everything costs more in Helsinki, particularly entrance to attractions, hence I went for it.

Having done this the first two attractions I visited were free!  I went to the two cathedrals of Helsinki – Uspenski Cathedral and Helsinki Cathedral.  Of the two, the Uspenski Cathedral was the more ornate, and also had views out over Helsinki from its terrace.

The weather in Helsinki was the coldest I have had it on the trip (I felt like I could have happily had gloves on at some points) and it got wetter as the day went on.  This meant that I saw some of the sites (such as the art deco railway station and the Parliament building) form the outside through the rain!

I did get to use my Helsinki card in visiting three art museums – the Atenium Art Museum (the National Gallery), the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiesma and the HAM Helsinki Art Museum.  I’m not sure that any of these really met their entrance fee compared to some of the other galleries of the world (or even of this trip), particularly as they each had galleries closed for rehanging.  The most interesting was the Atenium as dotted around the collection of works were a number of painting theoretically “on loan” from the “National Gallery of Duckburg” but in reality pastiches of some of the paintings in their collection redone with Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck etc.  It had a bit of the air of when Banksy took over the Bristol Museum, particularly as the paintings had (very) serious captions/explanations sitting below them.  As I didn’t know this was going on, it was all a bit of a surprise to me, but it certainly added some life to the displays.

My next stop was the National History Museum of Finland, to find out more about the country (which, like every country I have visited on this trip is only around 100 years old having previously been part of Russia and before that Sweden).  However, whilst I was going round I got an e-mail stating that the 19:00 ferry that I was booked on had been cancelled due to bad weather.  Whilst they told me that tickets were valid until end May 2018 that was no help as I needed to be back that day!  The e-mail was quite unhelpful, and the reply to my query made it very clear that they saw it as my problem to sort out another crossing, whatever it cost, they weren’t offering any kind of transfer.  Fortunately I also received a text message from them, also telling me it was cancelled, but adding the additional useful information that there was a 15:00 crossing I could go on.  Whilst this was much earlier than I had planned, I reached the conclusion that I may as well go and get it as it was just about practical to make it and any extended stay in Helsinki would have to be taken up with booking another ferry. 

I made it to the ferry terminal just as boarding was commencing and made it onto the ferry.  It did get a bit choppy as the journey went on (including a wave going over one side of the ferry) so if it was going to get worse maybe it was sensible to cancel the later crossing.  At least I made it back and will be able to get my flight tomorrow!  This did mean that the rest of my to do list for Helsinki had to be abandoned.  I was particularly sad not to get out to the Olympic Stadium, to add to my collection of Olympic Stadia, but given that it (and its viewing tower) were closed for renovation at the moment I probably wouldn’t have seen much, particularly with the rain pouring down!