May 28: Helsinki, Finland

The next day we were in Helsinki, Finland. We had read about an interesting looking island fortress they have, Suomenlinna. After picking up 7 euro all-day bus passes (score!) we headed toward Market Square to get the ferry to the island. We had a little while to walk around before it left so we went to see Senate Square:

That's a statue of the Russian emporer Alexander the II which was erected in 1894 to commemorate the Russians taking over Finland (again). We also had a little look around the market in Market Square and got a Finnish 'meat pie' which is kind of like folded fried bread with a frankfurter, onion, mashed potato and sauce in it.

We took the ferry to Suomenlinna. It was very cold!

Unfortunately when we got to the island we were a little disappointed. We thought it was a fortress... but it's more like a town, with a fortress on it. There are schools and shops and playgrounds. But nothing was open! There were no signposts explaining historical (or otherwise) sights or buildings on the island. Considering this was meant to be Helsinki's number one attraction, we felt let down.

 However, we DID see some ridiculously cute baby geese, which I was very pleased with.

Back on the mainland, we headed toward the Sibelius Monument we'd heard about, on the bus. It was pretty. (Photo is looking up to the sky through the monument).

Helsinki was a little boring in terms of interesting buildings and historical places to visit, in our opinion. I'm not sure if we just didn't research places to go enough, but we felt it was a little lacking a heart, and style. The excursions on the boat (although we only did them in St Petersburg) are usually a good idea of what to see in a city. Suomenlinna was one, and I think Sibelius and the Rock Church were included in another one. So on to our next mission with the final hope of seeing something a little more interesting: The Rock Church. To be honest, it was an interesting church. But you need to be more than interesting on this trip to impress Claire and Adrian. Compared to the churches we saw in St Petersburg, it was nothing.

Back on the ship, we had a sit in the spa pool for a while. After tea, the waitress surprised us by saying there was a chocolate buffet for dessert tonight. (When we'd finished with the chocolate buffet, the waitress then asked us, in a very American manner, if we'd like to choose another dessert from the normal menu. It's very hard to say no to these people!!). For the evening's entertainment we watched a very cheesey and somewhat amateur magic show, and a game show called "The Perfect Couple" which was hilarious.