Helsinki, Finland – July 26

Helsinki is a huge change from our last 3 days in Russia. There are about 450 000 inhabitants (what Europeans called population) or 1 000 000 in the greater Helsinki area. This morning we board a bus for a city tour. Although there are beautiful buildings and a few interesting monuments, the tour proceeds at a slow pace and we are given A LOT of time at each building or monument we stop at.

One stop we make that is very interesting is a church (Lutheran) built into rock. Apparently the builder decided to dynamite into the rock and leave a hollow that would be the church rather than get rid of the rock all together. It sounds like it could be cave like, but there is a lot of light and the roof is a 5000 kilometre coil of copper tubing that forms a sort of upside-down basket

We aren’t docked so that we can walk easily back to the ship, but there is a shuttle every half hour. We check out a couple of open air markets – Chris considered getting a reindeer sausage (they’re all over the place), but didn’t bother. Lunch was at a café – should have taken a pic, but forgot.

We sailed early, so we spent the rest of the afternoon soaking up the last few hours of sailing. Tomorrow we disembark and spend a few days on our own in Stockholm.