May 16th: A day in Helsinki

Monday dawned grey and wet which was not the greatest start for a rest day. Anyway we had come to see Helsinki,,,,,,So after a good breakfast in the Hotel Kamp  Tim, Wendy and I set out to take the 1100 bus tour of the city.  Thew big orange bus left from the park opposite the hotel and was nearly full when we arrived. We bought Helsinki cards which entitled us to the tour and  various other  discounts  and offers including a free ferry ride out to the island fortress of Suomenlinna which we had decided would be the afternoon  activity.

The Hotel Kamp and the statue of the National Poet .....

The big orange bus......

Despite the rain the trip on the bus turned out to be  pretty well just exactly what we wanted, 90 minutes of tour with an English commentary covering the history of the city and  the main sites and sights!

The trip began with a tour of the main square and passed the cathedral which we had seen the day before
..............

The view from the bus was not always the best what with the rain and sitting on the inside but the camera and screens gave us a good view  of the forward aspect of the tour

...and the commentary was good -  a tape played through headphones  with 11 languages to choose from!
The only stop on the tour was at the Sibelius monument...........an intimate moment shared with hordes of other tourists from China, Japan and India predominantly! There were coach loads of princess cruise passengers for example.

Tim and Wendy  at the Sibelius Monument park - the rain had eased off considerably fortunately

Me (well my hat) at the monument

The monumnet whhc was quite impressive. The theme is trees and woods more than organ pipes apparently

..and an image of the man himself.

The stop at the church blasted into the rock was cancelled as the church was closed so we continued on the tour seeing the National Library, the Opera House and many other examples of good architecture ancient and modern.

All too soon the tour was over but at least the rain had stopped. Despite the grey skies we continued with the plan and headed off to the island fortress hooking up with travelling companions Eric and Lynne on the way. Eric had spent the morning trying to get a new front window for his Land River Discovery to replace the one vandalized earlier in the trip.

The ferry ride out to the island was in the mist and low cloud which  persisted...

...but nothing deters our fearless cinematographer Tim.................

The ferry arriving at the island  it takes cars as well as people

The island is actually islands with several rocky outcrops all joined together by bridges and the complex contains  old workshops, the fortifications , gun emplacements, a ship yard and at one time had the largest dry dock in Europe.  We walked all over the place looking at the buildings and sights. There are many restaurants on the islands  and they all seemed to be open despite the general low numbers of visitors.

The history of the Suomenlinna sea fortress was explained really well in a cinema show in the only open museum on the island.The place was built with French funds as a way to help protect the port from invaders.
The place was rather grey but we started off with lunch which put a very good aspect to the afternoon.

 One of the gun emplacements  in the battery at the south end of the islands

 Evidence of the age of the hardware - 1865

We continued walking around everywhere despite the cool breze and the continuing mist - but it was not really raining.

Tim strolling off to the "kings Gate"

Tim and Wendy on the outside of the Kings Gate

There were many of these Barnacle Geese everywhere, on the water, on land and in the air

Again time caught up and we headed back to the ferry.  The journey was enlivened by a helicopter flying around in circles  and over the ferry as we crossed back to the mainland.

Back at the wharf there were great crowds gathering and TV crews setting up. Finland had beaten Sweden 6-1 in the final of the hockey championships  at the weekend and the wharfside market place was the venue for the teams's homecoming party. We went off to the hotel which was preparing to lock down as 50-100,000 fans surged down the street to be ready for the big event. Apparently on Saturday night there had been great celebrations in the area which was why all the bus shelters had broken glass in them! Seems that ice hockey is a very big thing in Finland.

Back at the hotel it seemed all the various sub-groups of the convoy had finally come together in one place ans so a celebratory dinner was organised in the hotel's Japanese restaurant. It was decided to be safe and avoid joining the crowds on the streets outside.  A great evening was had by all. Eric had the news  that a replacement window will be sent by courier to his hotel him to catch up in 2 days time up the road and all we had to do was to get some sleep and prepare for the first day of heading north in Finland.