A Rather Drippy Visit to Finland

We sailed across the Gulf of Finland to pay a brief visit to the Helsinki area.

We drove through the city and past many of its landmarks. The skies were darkening. We still had our fingers crossed that we might have gray skies but no drippy stuff.

Fifty kilometers out of the city, we arrived in Porvoo. It is a regular town on the outskirts of the city, but happens to have a remarkably preserved old town area, giving a visitor a taste of what Finland looked like 200 years ago (or so said our tour guide).

Unfortunately, as we started to walk the old cobblestone streets, the rain started in earnest. I mean, big, wet, soaking raindrops. This was a stop where we were to have a couple hours on our own to wander, shop, take pictures, whatever. But it was fairly early on a Sunday morning, and not many of the shops were open.

We wandered. I took lots of pictures. We scanned the possibilities in one of the few shops open. A lot of people visited a big chocolate shop that was offering lots of free tastings. We aren’t really chocolate people, so we gave that a pass (though it was tempting, because it looked warm and dry in there).

We walked until we were thoroughly wet and drippy ourselves. Really cute town, and we’re glad we got to see the old buildings. Next time: in better weather, please.

 

Back in Helsinki, we had a little time before our ship would start its final leg of the cruise.

We visited the large Senate Square, which is dominated by Helsinki’s large Lutheran Cathedral.

Helsinki looks like a thriving city and a very nice place to live. A nice size for a city. It’s pretty Portland-like for size: 630,000 in the city and 1.2 million in the urban area. And Finland has a population of 5.5 million—again, not too different from Oregon.

Uspenski Cathedral (Eastern Orthodox)

At just over 60 degrees latitude, Helsinki enjoys wonderful daylight in summer—and the lack thereof in winter. Our Finnish guide spent a lot of time talking about the dark time of year and the inclination to drink. She said that they drink and are very sociable in the summer, but that they hibernate like bears in the winter—and they drink. She also talked about the national pastime of sauna (“sow-nuh”) and their complete openness about nudity.

Interestingly, our guides in Tallinn, Saint Petersburg, and Helsinki all raved about their city’s reputation for building icebreakers. I have never been anyplace that bragged about their icebreakers. In these three cities, we had four guides, all of whom talked repeatedly about icebreakers. I think it may just be possible that this is an insight to the local climate and what the winters must be like! (In Saint Petersburg, we were told that the ice on the rivers had only been gone 3 weeks, and most of the trees were not even budding yet.)

Brief but interesting visit. To my few Finnish friends, I am sorry we didn’t have more time to explore your homeland.