I arrived in Helsinki at 10:30pm and had some vague instruction on how to reach the hostel I had booked into. So after getting a bus from the airport to the city centre, as instructed by my instructions, I found myself walking around in circles trying to find a tram or metro to the hostel. After a good 15mins tiredness and frustration kicked in so I wrote down the name of the hostel on a bit of paper and gave it to a taxi, jumped in and a few minutes late I was walking through the front door of the hostel. Basically that was my first few hours in Helsinki, then I jumped in bed to prepare for the next day.
Today I had planned to do a fair bit of sightseeing and had marked on the map the various places I wanted to visit. First stop was a church, but not any old church, this one had been carved from the earth, built within a rock which had been chiseled away to form this "one of a kind" places. The whole church wasn't built from the rock, the roof and floor were unnatural but it was still quite impressive!
On the way to my next destination, Fortress of Suomenlinna, I walked passed the 1952 Olympics site, relaxed on a bench in the Winter Garden and passed numerous old buildings from varying time periods. After a long walk and a quick 15min ferry ride to the Fortress on the island Suomenlinna it was time for more walking... The island was pretty big so I had planned on staying there until the last ferry in order to see the whole place. After walking around for hours on end passing through old bunkers, pitch black tunnels and massive cannons it was time to rest my weary legs and what better way to do it than with a couple of local beers and a quite alcove on the rocky shore to do a bit of reading.
The weekend that I was in Helsinki, by coincidence, was their Midsummer Celebrations which included massive bonfires along the shores of the mainland and the hundreds of outlying islands. After taking the ferry back from the islands to the mainland it was time to find a bonfire. Shortly after, I stumbled across a massive stack of wood by the water so I found a suitable viewpoint and waited and waited and waited and waited and finally the fire began. To tell you the truth it wasn't that exciting, just really a massive fire, but was definitely interesting to witness. Time to head home and after a long long walk I got there. My dorm was empty so was good to have the place to myself, don't know why but it was good.
The morning came and I decided to leave the city a bit early, I felt satisfied with what I'd seen over the past day, so I walked to the station and got on a bus to the airport, changed my flight to the next one leaving for London and away I went. London here I come! Pete was expecting me on Sun (I was arriving Sat) and Josh wasn't expecting me at all...
Now I'm in London, again, so I'll report again soon, maybe from Spain this time...
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