Long trip

Sunday 29 July 2012

I am sitting at the Helshinki Airport Flygstation waiting for my connection to Amsterdam. Footsore & weary after a day in Helsinki which began at too early for holidays, as flight arrived at 6.15am & even with fannying about looking for the storage lockers to stow carryon bag for the day, still got into the city at 7.30am. Needless  to say town pretty quiet at that time of a Sunday morning, so started quietly with a coffee & then hopped on the 3T tram (or trolley as they call them here) which goes past most of the cities attractions in what seemed to be a loop.  This was a good deal as E12 bought a day pass for buses & trams (including the airport bus)  The full loop took about 50 minutes & was useful to get the lie of the land, although if I had got off at one of the outer stops, would have needed the breadcrumbs. Then did the selfguided walking tour I got off the net, which was good as it explained the points of interest, rather than just floating past another nice old building.

 I had run out of puff by about midday & had determined that I would eat pickled herrings for lunch, but was sadly disappointed as I could not find it on any of the menu's I checked, had to settle for dona kebab & a beer.........both still repeating on me!

Helsinki is a nice city, very clean, & NO graffiti, don't know how they have achieved that as every other city I have visited in Europe has this problem. Not particularly old, as it was leveled by fire in early1800's & a lot of the new buildings where  designed by Carl Engel, did not see much highrise, just 4-6 stories. Some parts have a touch of the iron curtain about them, but this impression not helped by the overcast day (but 24 later on, so quite muggy)

The Library of the University of Helsinki, Engel designed

The Lutheran Cathedral on Senate Square, reminds of Sacre Couer,..also owes a bit to Palladio's La Rotunda

Central Railway Station, the almost totem-looking figures are a recurring theme around Helsinki

Russian Orthodox Church -another Engel job- 1827

Lord Mayor's House

House of the Nobility - was a private club for Russian & Finnish aristocracy mid 19th C

The Burger's house - the oldest remaining wooden building

Impressions of Finns, well, on they whole they appear to be an atttractive people, clear skin & fine features, a soupcon of eskimo is a recurring theme, but fairer....thing is they could smile more....I don't know, maybe they have bad teeth, wouldn't know, didn't see any!

PS first international flight on Qantas fine, this was for the Adelaide to Singapore leg, food good- got the individual bottle of bubbly with tea, seat plenty roomy enough, comparable with Malaysian & Singapore. Plane only half full, so that helped too. Next leg, Singapore to Helsinki with Finnair, new plane, touchscreen inflight entertainment system & bigger screen, too, all good, they probably don't keep you topped up with water & juices the way the others do, but you can ask if you want it.