Our Lone Day in Finland
Trip Start
Feb 21, 2012
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Trip End
Jun 05, 2012
Helsinki, Southern Finland, Finland
Sunday, June 3, 2012
We arrived not quite fresh of the boat in Turku, about a 2 hour drive from Helsinki. I honestly can't tell you much about the scenery as most if not all of us slept the entire way following the late night, early start as well as a time change. Yikes. It would've been nice to seen some of the wilderness I'd read about, but oh well. We got a city tour on the bus to see a few of the sites including the including the Olympic Stadium as well as the Sibellius statue. After that, a quick stop at the Church on the Rocks and we were on our own to check out the city itself.
The weather was an improvement over Stockholm without the heavy rain and winds. As breakfast was hours ago, lunch would be the first order of business. We were on the lookout for the Carolinean (pardon my spelling) stew that is typically Finnish, but no luck, eventually finding a Scandinavian restaurant we were get to try a few new things. Ordered the potato waffles to start - interesting for sure. You have to eat the waffle, sour cream and the roe together though. The main was an open sandwich for me that was quite yummy.
After that, mostly just walked around and did a bit of shopping in between checking out the 2 big churches in Helsinki - the Lutheran Cathedral and the Uspenski Cathedral which was really gorgeous from the outside. No pictures though inside and there was a service going on as well. From there it was a short stroll to the markets on the harbor. The stalls were really neat, but it was the food that blew me a bit away and had us wishing we'd hit them up for lunch instead. Unfortunately an early return to the hotel and timings meant we couldn't even make dinner there work.
Last night on the Contiki tour as those continuing on to Russia had their big meeting that night to discuss the trip from here out. Said a few goodbyes and already missing them as I packed and settled in for a little sleep before an early morning flight.
