On to Helsinki
We arrived in Helsinki around 11am this morning, so had plenty of time for brunch before heading out on the first shuttle bus into town. We’d looked at our tour tickets yesterday and, recognising that this was probably our third time here, the thought of a guided walk through the city centre wasn’t as attractive as going it alone again. We turned in our tickets and hoped that someone would be able to make good use of them.
We were on the first shuttle bus heading for the marketplace, near where the cruise ships used to dock. Though it was sunny and bright now, the weather forecast was for rain later and we wanted to make the most of the fine weather whilst it lasted.
Regular readers of my blog will know what was on my mind as we walked over the bridge 🙄
It was a pleasant walk along here though, as long as we avoided the food stalls where the seagulls were showing rather too much interest.
We crossed the road and turned right, up towards the cathedral. We were not shopping for anything in particular, or, in fact, anything at all. But I recalled some rather good shops around here selling Finnish design.
It wasn’t long before we found one of them, my eye caught by the cute bear in the shop window. I went inside to look around OKRA immediately finding several things of interest.
In particular, my eye was caught by these lovely serving spoons/forks, sitting alongside some rather larger salad servers. They’re designed and made in Finland and I thought them a useful and practical souvenir to take home, for though the bears are cute, we have more than enough bits and pieces to dust already 😘
Transaction complete, I joined my Hero outside to stand and stare at the Cathedral a while.
We’ve been here on each of our previous visits and when I think of Helsinki, it’s the image that comes into my mind: white and green at the top of lots of steps!
As we walked through some of the smaller streets around here, I noticed a distinctive manhole cover. I like to snap pictures of those and did so here before we moved on a little. Whether or not my eyes were cast downward rather than upwards along here, the next thing I noticed was this:
It appeared to be a strip of latin, though our basic vocabulary couldn’t make head nor tail of it. In the same way as the strip that marks the route of the old Berlin Wall in that city, however, this line appeared to be marking the route of something significant. I did what I now seem to do all too often - I took a photograph and thought I’d Google it later!
There were some grand buildings along here with beautiful features such as this entrance.
I had also spotted a branch of Normal, the Scandinavian drugstore right opposite however, and couldn’t resist dropping in there for one or two bits and pieces. When I came out, my Hero had spotted the Stockmann department store on the nearby corner and we thought we’d go and take a look in there. Ha! We were both mindful of the last time we shopped in a Scandinavian department store and bought a chair…
We didn’t get very far inside the store before I spotted a familiar sign. Lakrids are a favourite liquorice sweet of ours, normally restricted to their Advent Calendar each year, but as soon as we spotted the name, we were drawn to it like moths to a flame!
The assistant Kristi immediately came over with a sample for us each. Had we tried the new summer fruit flavours? Well, no, we hadn’t… In the next ten or fifteen minutes I think we’d tried one of almost every variety she had to offer! I explained that since we usually enjoy this treat for Advent, we don’t normally get to try these seasonal varieties - the exception being a couple of years ago in Aarhus. We decided to buy a selection pot to take home with us and having tried the new, “slow crafted” ones, thought we’d buy some of those too. As she made the transaction, she asked if we were members of their “club” - errrm….yes, I said. That meant another pot of their Copenhagen Summer was in the bag as a gift…and then as I was putting my purse back into my bag, she threw in a handful of other samples too. Wow!
And we hadn’t really come in here to buy liiquorice, but to look at the Fiskars scissors I’d seen in the window, Finnish made and excellent quality. There they were on the 5th floor, amongst the homewares…but just keep walking, we told ourselves 🤭 A small purchase made, we looked at our watches and thought we’d return to the shuttle bus stop as we didn’t want to get caught in the rain.
So we returned through the Esplanade park, noting the statues as we went. Above is the poet, Eino Leino.
A little further along is Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Finland’s National Poet, who wrote the words to the National Anthem. Those words are inscribed on the tablet held by the Maiden of Finland, shown there beneath him,
Yes, thank you Google Lens 🤣
That seems like a good place to insert my flag shot, then 🇫🇮. We caught the shuttle bus back to the ship and felt happy with our time spent here in Helsinki.
As I opened my bag, I smiled at our purchases and recalled that perhaps I’d seen those small serving tools somewhere before…in fact, I might have seen those exact salad servers here in Helsinki. Or? Might it have been…? I looked at an old blog entry from a previous visit and look what I found
seen in Porvoo a few years ago! Well, at least it shows how consistent my taste for Scandinavian design is.
I also found out more about that strip of words in the pavement here and wished I had read that website before we went, because there were so many curious details to notice here and there!
