Helsinki, Finland

Helsinki Cathedral

The idea of spending a weekend in Finland, yet another Scandinavian country worked well for me. Flew from Oslo, Norway on Friday 5th June to Helsinki and stayed in Espoo, which requires by train travel of approximately an hour from Helsinki central / Kamppi. 

Uspenski Cathedral

On Saturday morning after having breakfast (Karelian rice pies - Finland pasties,  made from a thin rye crust with a filling of rice, Indian Bread Patato Rolls and Indian Tea) reached Helsinki central at 9:30 a.m and decided to explore the city on foot. Started of with the visit to Esplanade park before making my first stop at  one of the most popular tourist and  iconic  Helsinki Cathedral or the white church which was built between 1824 and 1826.  As the centre of Helsinki has many fine churches representing different styles decided to go for the Uspenski Cathedral or the Red Church, which reflects the Russian influence on the helsinki architecture.

As it was a sunny day, decided to take the ferry to Suomenlinna  island (15 minutes journey) and spend the next 3  hours in the island.  The island was busy with many picnicing groups and many meusuem visitors.  As it turned out to be a Suomenlinna meusuem day, entrance to all 4 meusuems were free and everyone was having a good time.

Later at 2 p.m was back to White church to watch the Brazil dance festival, which went till 5 pm.  It was good to watch school kids to older adults dancing to very entertaining music with colourful costumes.

Samba Carnaval 2015

Samba Carnaval 2015

Samba Carnaval 2015

Samba Carnaval 2015

On Sunday, visited the Olympic stadium, which provides a beautiful aerial view of the city before visiting the Sibelius Monument, dedicated to the Finnish music composer Jean  Sibelius.
The monument consists of series of more than 600 hollow steel pipes welded together in a wave-like pattern and the intention of the artist was to capture the essence of the music of Sibelius.

Sibelius Monument

As it turned out to be a windy day was not expecting much crowd in the park, but as there was some kind of photography competition and was able to witness many people trying to get different facade of the park with their SLR camera apart from the regulars, jogging and reading books.

After a late lunch, started my return journey to Oslo, Norway by the Fin Airways. The 2 day travel pass, I bought at the Airport turned out to be a very good deal as I ended up in spending only 18 EURO for all my travel (commute from airport by bus, commute to espoo on train, ferry to Suomenlinna island and local trams and bus within the city).


Samba Carnaval 2015