Not long after my first awesome trip to Scandanavia, I was eager to go back on a personal trip and bring my partner Joanne this time so we booked Helsinki for March and Paddy’s day. It turned out to be a bit colder than we’d expected, no snow to begin with but it snowed mid trip which was lovely. There was thick ice at the harbour too. There was a handy train from the airport to city centre main train station and our wonderfully gothic hotel was within walking distance from there. It was a hard enough walk with a big suitcase full our our roller skates and gear though! We stupidly thought we’d have our first over seas skating experience in Finland having checked out some cool looking routes beforehand. We didn’t factor in the weather though which made it impossible. Again, as in Sweden, the brekkie spread was amazing. It must be a Scandanavian thing!? It was served in the basement with barrel vaulted ceilings and a huge range of options. They even put up decorations and the staff dressed up for Patrick’s day which was a class move. Think we were the only Irish there at the time though so we made ourselves known!
Dinner on night one was just across the road in “Bacco” (From Bacchus, the Greek God of wine and we had a bottle of red in honour!) Italian and was superb. On day two we ventured into town to get a proper feel for the place. Again, like Stockholm, it was a standard city with all the usual shops etc.. so we gravitated towards the older parts with cathedrals, parks and scenery. Down at the harbour we checked out the fab Old Market Hall, full of food and trinkets, then we hopped on a day cruise, on a boat that had to break through sea ice, out to the weird and wonderful 18th century sea fortress “Suomenlinna”. This place had a weird effect on me. The combination of bleak weather, snow covering and old war vibes (check out the war museum on the island) hit me in the feels a bit. Highly recommended though.
Dinner on night two was a lovely pizza in Hietalahden kauppahalli food hall just down end of the road from the hotel. Special mention too for our first Armenian food in Armenia House, right next door to the hotel and a lovely Sushi lunch at Sushibar & Wine, Uudenmaankatu. Our final night dinner was authentic Finnish food (Reindeer & Elk!) in Restaurant Savotta but it wasn’t great and a bit overpriced. Prob because of the location right across from the cathedral. I want to mention a cool cafe near the hotel too, GTC Cafe, where you can play games, drink coffee and have snacks! We’ve ended up looking for similar cafes or pubs with board games everywhere we’ve been since because of this place.
One thing I’m sorry we missed was the Finnish custom of sauna + cold sea/lake dip. We seen people doing it from the boat cruise but it just felt too cold to be doing shit like that!
Just after we got back from Helsinki, I read that Finland had the happiest people on the planet. You wouldn’t know it from being there though! They are all pretty quiet, stoic and not exactly happy clappy but maybe they’re content on the inside!
