June 3, 2014 - Helsinki, Finland

Our ship arrived in Helsinki at 7 am today, but our tour didn’t begin until 9, so we had a more leisurely start to our day. We had booked a 5-hour tour through the same company as our others, and we were pretty disappointed with this one. It was interesting, but our guide spoke softly and we didn’t have headsets like we used in St. Petersburg so it was difficult to hear her, the group was 21 people, and the bus driver and the guide were arguing quite a bit about the route. The driver kept turning on different streets that the guide wanted to go on … it was just weird – and to top it off, it rained off and on most of the day.

ANYWAY … Finland has both influences from the west and east – Vikings from Sweden and Russians from the east. We headed through town down some beautiful streets.


One of the major industries in Finland is shipbuilding and they have ice breakers to keep the Gulf of Finland open year round. Our guide told us that last winter was very mild and the ice breakers didn’t have any work because the Gulf did not freeze. The large ships below are ice breakers.

Our first stop was Senate Square. The large white building with the green roof and dome is the Lutheran Church. It has the second largest organ in Europe with 4000 pipes. Inside the architecture is very simple compared to many other European churches.

The blue building is City Hall where a single guard stands every day.

A block from Senate Square is the Market Square. Strolling through we saw the fresh fruits, flowers, fish, and of course, tourist souvenirs for sale!


You could get a fresh fruit or a hot meal …. or even a leather fly swatter!

We walked a few blocks to see this church – I think it was St. Henry’s Catholic Church, but I need to research a little more to confirm that! I will let you know next time I have internet.

We had a five minute stop at the Olympic Stadium where the Olympic games were held in 1952. Today it is home to a sports center.

Our next stop was Seurasaari People’s Park which is the smallest of the 38 national parks in Finland. Founded in 1909, it is the home to 85 wooden buildings dating from 1686 brought from all over Finland. This was our favorite part of the tour and wished we had more than an hour to spend there. We were greeted by several gulls because the park is located on the Gulf of Finland.

Just as we entered the park we saw the Forest Warden’s House which dates from the 1890s.


The 19th century hay-cabin had earth floors and came from the shores of Lake Pulmankijavi in Lapland. The houses below were from the 1700s.

The chimneyless cabins from Kaukoa were built in the 1820s and transferred from the Lutheran area on the Karelian Isthmus.

The outside storehouses for sleeping and storing food were brought from Sakkola and Kaukola. Compared to storehouses in western Finland, these were small. We were able to tour the inside of a couple of the larger homes. This girl was dressed in period costume.

The last building we saw was the Karuna Church which is the oldest building in this open-air museum. Baron Arvid Horn built it as a chapel for the parish of Sauvo in 1685-86. The exterior has been altered several time and the weather vanes on the roof date from alterations in 1773-74 when the shingle roof of the church was made. In the early 1900s, a new stone church was built in Sauvo, and the old wooden building became obsolete.

We thought the candle holders in the church were most interesting!


We had a 5-minute photo stop at this monument to one of the most famous composers in Finland. His name? Something like Sebulus, but I’m not sure. I do know that she said it was built in 1967, has 570 pipes, and is a UNESCO site.
Our last stop was Temppeliaukio Church, more commonly known as the Stone Church. The church in built into the granite and when you see it from the outside, it looks like nothing special – a concrete entrance next to the granite.

Inside is a much different story – it was simple, but unique. The organ has copper pipes and the dome is covered with 22 km of hollow copper pipes that create great acoustics.

The dome is only 13 meters high (about 40 feet.) Our guide said over 80% of Finns are Lutheran.

After the tour we hustled back to the bus in the rain, then made our journey back to the cruise ship. We learned a little about the history of Finland, the geography, the culture, and social system. Again, another country with only about 67 days of sunshine – I could NEVER live here, but it was fun to visit!