Last weekend Emma and I visited Helsinki, the capital of Finland. From Turku it is a two-hour drive by bus. Not that bad, due to good company, music and some candies.
When we were leaving Turku, it was raining like hell. The weather was just really shitty. But when we arrived in Helsinki, there was a blue sky and the sun was shining. We had the weather gods on our side for ones!
We arrived in Helsinki quite early, so the city was still asleep. It was so peaceful and quiet.
First we tried to find our hostel, where we were gonna spend the night. We both had never slept in a hostel before, so a first time for everything I suppose and we can mark something from the bucketlist again. When we found the place, they didn't answered to the doorbell, so that was a good start of our hostel experience. We decided to bring our suitcase to a locker at the station, and from this point the exploring could start.
Before we came to Helsinki we had looked up some highlights and got some tips from colleagues and friends. We didn't had a real plan for what we wanted to see and do, but at the end we saw most of the highlights and Helsinki showed us her best sides.
A few highlights of Helsinki are churches. In general the city has quite a lot of them and most churches are Lutheran churches. Also a striking thing that you might notice when you are in Helsinki, are the light-green roofs of the churches. One of the eye catchers is definitely Helsingin tuomiokirkko, Suurkirkko: the doom church. It is a beautiful white building, including the green roof. The second day that we saw it, it was even more prettier. The white walls were catching and reflecting the sunlight, and made it look so bright.
Then we got our eyes on a giant cruise ship and walked towards it. We ended up in the South-Harbor of Helsinki. There is a little market square where they sell dishes from different countries. But as real tourists we only had eye for the Ferris Wheel, and we just had to take a ride. The Ferris wheel gave you a pretty good view of the city, and after one round we wanted another one. I think the person who was controlling the wheel, could read our minds so we got another round. But after that I think there was a miscommunication, we even got a third and fourth round. That was a little bit of an overkill, but at least we got value for our money.
Also a must-see in Helsinki are the Market Halls. Inside they have little shops where you can get dishes from countries all around the world. From Finnish to Ghanaian, Vietnamese and Spanish. A little bit like the concept that we have at the Foodhallen in Rotterdam.
After the sight seeing it was time for some shopping, and what a coincidence, Helsinki is the perfect place for that with all of the shopping centers. It has something for everyone - the high and brands and the shops for poor students like me.
When we reached to point where we spend enough money for one day, we started looking for a place to get dinner. While walking around we jumped into a market square full of stalls with food from different countries. We decided not to go with a Finnish dish, but with a traditional snack from the Czech Republic: Trdelník, a kind of spit cake that is made from rolled dough. To prepare it, it is wrapped around a stick, then grilled ant topped with sugar and cinnamon. It was sooo good, that we thought it was the best thing that we had eaten that day.
But we were so wrong.... We looked around some more at the market and then we saw it.... A market stall full with Dutch cheese, was this a dream? Did we ended up in heaven? Yes, we ended up in heaven. We immediately knew that we were gonna buy some cheese. At the moment we were discussing a little bit about which one we would get, we heard something strange.. Did we heard that right? Was there someone talking in Dutch to us?! It was so nice to hear someone talking in Dutch, that wasn't Emma (sorry Em). We talked for a bit and did some tasting. We decided to go with our favorites: the aged cheese and the cheese with cumin. We were grinning like we hit the jackpot and I don't think these cheeses are going to be in our fridge for a long time.
So after our cheese-moment, we ended up in a sushi place for diner. Not the best choice of the day I must say. But we had a blast and laughed our asses off, what makes us almost forget about the terrible sushi.
Exhausted from the day we strolled back to the hostel. We were in a room with six other people. And maybe at this point we noticed some culture differences with people from other countries. I will just pretend that it is a normal thing to wake everyone else up, early in the morning by making noise and shine a lamp right in my face. But besides that, it was nice to experience sleeping in a hostel for once.
So we got up quite early and left for our second day in Helsinki. We decided to go back to the harbor and bought a ticket for a boat tour to the islands close to Helsinki. Before leaving we went to one of the market halls, where we got a typical Finnish pastry: korvapuusti, the Finnish cinnamon bread.
We ended up getting some more pastries, that were so good that they were gone before I could take a picture. To bad that I have to get them again, so I can show them to you...
The boat took us to our first stop: Vallissaari, one of the smaller islands. We made a hike around the island, which gave us the prettiest view over sea and you could even see Helsinki at the coast.
Our next stop was to one of the bigger islands, Suomenlinna. Here we walked around for a bit and got something to drink. Lucky us, we could sit outside and enjoy the sun on (probably) one of the last sunny days. Both of the islands made me feel so 'zen' and gave you the idea that you were in a little bubble, apart from the rest of the city.
We ended the weekend with a total of 49541 steps and 35,91 km.
And with all this walking Helsinki gave us a glimpse of what she had to offer and made me fell in love with the city a little bit.
Nähdään!
Aniek
Then we got our eyes on a giant cruise ship and walked towards it. We ended up in the South-Harbor of Helsinki. There is a little market square where they sell dishes from different countries. But as real tourists we only had eye for the Ferris Wheel, and we just had to take a ride. The Ferris wheel gave you a pretty good view of the city, and after one round we wanted another one. I think the person who was controlling the wheel, could read our minds so we got another round. But after that I think there was a miscommunication, we even got a third and fourth round. That was a little bit of an overkill, but at least we got value for our money.
Also a must-see in Helsinki are the Market Halls. Inside they have little shops where you can get dishes from countries all around the world. From Finnish to Ghanaian, Vietnamese and Spanish. A little bit like the concept that we have at the Foodhallen in Rotterdam.
After the sight seeing it was time for some shopping, and what a coincidence, Helsinki is the perfect place for that with all of the shopping centers. It has something for everyone - the high and brands and the shops for poor students like me.
When we reached to point where we spend enough money for one day, we started looking for a place to get dinner. While walking around we jumped into a market square full of stalls with food from different countries. We decided not to go with a Finnish dish, but with a traditional snack from the Czech Republic: Trdelník, a kind of spit cake that is made from rolled dough. To prepare it, it is wrapped around a stick, then grilled ant topped with sugar and cinnamon. It was sooo good, that we thought it was the best thing that we had eaten that day.
But we were so wrong.... We looked around some more at the market and then we saw it.... A market stall full with Dutch cheese, was this a dream? Did we ended up in heaven? Yes, we ended up in heaven. We immediately knew that we were gonna buy some cheese. At the moment we were discussing a little bit about which one we would get, we heard something strange.. Did we heard that right? Was there someone talking in Dutch to us?! It was so nice to hear someone talking in Dutch, that wasn't Emma (sorry Em). We talked for a bit and did some tasting. We decided to go with our favorites: the aged cheese and the cheese with cumin. We were grinning like we hit the jackpot and I don't think these cheeses are going to be in our fridge for a long time.
So after our cheese-moment, we ended up in a sushi place for diner. Not the best choice of the day I must say. But we had a blast and laughed our asses off, what makes us almost forget about the terrible sushi.
Exhausted from the day we strolled back to the hostel. We were in a room with six other people. And maybe at this point we noticed some culture differences with people from other countries. I will just pretend that it is a normal thing to wake everyone else up, early in the morning by making noise and shine a lamp right in my face. But besides that, it was nice to experience sleeping in a hostel for once.
So we got up quite early and left for our second day in Helsinki. We decided to go back to the harbor and bought a ticket for a boat tour to the islands close to Helsinki. Before leaving we went to one of the market halls, where we got a typical Finnish pastry: korvapuusti, the Finnish cinnamon bread.
We ended up getting some more pastries, that were so good that they were gone before I could take a picture. To bad that I have to get them again, so I can show them to you...
The boat took us to our first stop: Vallissaari, one of the smaller islands. We made a hike around the island, which gave us the prettiest view over sea and you could even see Helsinki at the coast.
Our next stop was to one of the bigger islands, Suomenlinna. Here we walked around for a bit and got something to drink. Lucky us, we could sit outside and enjoy the sun on (probably) one of the last sunny days. Both of the islands made me feel so 'zen' and gave you the idea that you were in a little bubble, apart from the rest of the city.
We ended the weekend with a total of 49541 steps and 35,91 km.
And with all this walking Helsinki gave us a glimpse of what she had to offer and made me fell in love with the city a little bit.
Nähdään!
Aniek
Wat n heerlijke dagen hebben jullie gehad meiden!! Ik kan me heel goed voorstellen dat jullie wel die hele kaaskraam hadden willen leeg kopen ;-)
BeantwoordenVerwijderenHeerlijk
Maar wat n prachtige stad is Helsinki. Nog even en dan kan ik straks ook even kijken als ik met oma op 9/11 land met vliegtuig en we je komen opzoeken xxxx