Scandinavia

After being in bed for a long time we stood up quite late the next morning. We had been awake before, very early in the night because of the sun shining into our room. Despite the thick curtains there is always some light entering the room along the sides of curtains. Today is Hilleks birthday, she had become 40. After all congratulations we went for breakfast. It was a large breakfast buffet and after finishing it we went out to explore Helsinki.

First we went to the Rockchurch (Temppeliaukio). This is a church that has been cut out a rock. There were a lot of tourist buses standing outside, so it must be a popular tourist destination. On the inside it is not very special, except that all the walls are rock with a large copper dome on top of them. We stayed inside for a while as it was rather cool in the church. From the rockchurch we went to see another church, the cathedral of Helsinki at the Senate Square. It is a very large building, as white as a sheet. Also along this square are the university library and a number of government buildings. From the outside the cathedral looks very impressive, but on the inside it is not very exiting, a number of statues and that's about it. At a cafe near the cathedral we had a drink, it was very warm, thirsty weather today. Around 30 degrees centigrade, actually too warm for sightseeing.

From the cafe we walked towards the Tourist Info to gather some information about the major sights in the city and about a boatcruise through the Helsinki archipel. From the Tourist Office, Hilleke went to the nearest ATM across the street (they are marked with 'OTTO') to pull some money and in the meantime Arjan and Ciska went to admire the statue of Havis Amanda. It is a statue of a naked lady near the market square and it is seen as a symbol of Helsinki. There was also a show with cats. A lady with a number of cats had them perform some tricks. From there we walked to the market square adjoining the harbour. Form the harbour all the large ferrys to Tallinn and Stockholm leave. Also the tourboats as well as the small ferry-boats to the islands in the archipel leave from here. We also visited the Russian-orthodox Uspensky church. Both from the inside as well as the outside a very impressive church.

Across the market we walked back again and in a restaurant we had some coffee with cake to celebrate Hillekes birthday. After that we took the tram back to our hotel. This evening we had arranged to have dinner with Heidi, a former Progress colleague of Hilleke who lives in Helsinki. She would meet us in the lobby of the hotel at around 5 pm. At a quarter to five she already arrived and we welcomed her and exchanged presents. We decided to go for a drink somewhere before going to the restaurant. While we walked towards the cafe we came across a lot of people going to a Rolling Stones concert this evening in the city. After we had something to drink we went to the Lappi restaurant for dinner with the four of us. The atmosphere in the restaurant is very relaxed and for dinner we had reindeer. It is really a very good restaurant. After dinner we went for a walk and had some icecream and we said goodnight to Heidi. We decided to meet again tomorrow at around the same time.

The next morning we also slept late. When we left our room there were a lot of people waiting for the elevator to arrive. It also took a very long time before it came so we decided not to wait but to take the emergency stairs to go down. We walked through the kitchen and a long passage and through a door behind the reception desk we entered the lobby. It was very crowded in the breakfast room and we had to wait a long time to get something from the buffet. We assumed it had something to do with the Rolling Stones concert of last night with a lot of fans staying in the hotel. It really was a madhouse and it was also hard to find an empty table. Finally it took us more than a hour to finish our breakfast. So around half past ten we were able to start the second day of our visit to Helsinki. For today only two things remain and then we've seen the most important tourist sights of Helsinki. In 1 or 2 days you can see the most of it.

First we went to the Sibelius park, a park contributed to this famous Finnish composer with a piece of art consisting of organ pipes and the head of the master himself. Clearly this again is a big tourist attraction, a lot of tourist buses are parked there and also a lot of Japanese people are walking around. From the park we walked back to the hotel to take a tram to the harbour for a boat cruise through the archipel. Hilleke wanted to have a hat to wear on the boat against the sun, but the one she liked was rather expensive to Arjan bought it for her as a late birthday gift. The boat would leave at 1:20 pm so we walked the market again and had something to drink. The boat tour also included lunch so we had nothing to eat while waiting for the boat to leave. From the boat we had a nice view onto the islands in the archipel among which is Suomenlinna, the largest military fortification on an island and the zoo which is also on an island. We also sailed along the enormous icebreakers that keeps the harbour and channel free from ice during winter. After the cruise, with a delicious lunch by the way, we took the tram to go back to our hotel. While waiting for Heidi, Arjan and Ciska went for a swim in the pool. After Heidi arrived in the hotel we first had something to drink at the poolside and afterwards we went to a restaurant in a park for dinner. When we had finished dinner we walked along the seaside while enjoying an icecream and admiring some hot-air balloons taking off. We took the tram back to hotel and while going there we said goodbye to Heidi. It was nice seeing her again after such a long time. The last time we met, Hilleke was only a few weeks pregnant with Ciska in the summer of 1998. In the hotel we had our last night in Helsinki, tomorrow we'll leave the Finnish capital and go north to Tampere.