Travel The World / Helsinki

Hello and Happy Thursday!

Today I am going to hop on the train and go hang out with my friend in Helsinki before going to Stockholm. I will have the skin analysis, or face mapping as they call it at Dermalogica, and then we will just hang out and spend girl time together. I'm excited about that! So, since I will have a little time in Helsinki I figured I will tell you also a little bit about the city. It is after all the capital of Finland.

Helsinki, even though a pretty city, is not my favorite city in the world. Yes, they have way more things to do than our little town of Kuopio. They also have the biggest population in Finland, in the urban area it is 1,060,912. But for some reason, I haven't fallen in love with Helsinki as of yet. But I always have fun there. I especially remember this one time Scott and I went there during the summer. Our friends showed us different places around the city. Here's few pictures from that trip along with some fun facts.

Helsinki is situated on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, by the Baltic Sea, and it spreads around 300 islands, interconnected by a maze of bridges.

Helsinki has several neoclassical buildings but it is more famous for its numerous Art Nouveau (Jugend in Finnish) influenced buildings of the romantic nationalism, designed in the early 1900s.

Helsinki has a great public transportation system that includes buses, trams and a subway system. They are easy to use and fairly affordable (compared to other cities in Finland).

Helsinki Cathedral is a well known landmark in Helsinki. It was built between 1830-1852. The church is in regular use for both worship services and special events such as weddings.

The Helsinki Cathedral is surrounded by the Helsinki Senate Square. There have been many different art happenings on the square varying from concerts to snow sculpting.

The city of Helsinki has an average of 121 rainy days. Thank goodness after this picture was taken, the clouds cleared up and the sun shined for the rest of the day like usually summer time in Helsinki. But be aware for winters in Helsinki. The bitter wind from the sea gets to you, plus past couple winters there has been a lot of snow too!

Here's the Helsinki City Hall. It was funny that the huge Marimekko truck drove itself to the picture too. If you didn't know, Marimekko is a Finnish design house that is known for their bold colors and patterns.

Helsinki also has this awesome sea fortress called Suomenlinna (Castle of Finland). It is built on 6 islands that belong to the city of Helsinki. The Swedish crown commenced the construction of the fortress in 1748 as protection against Russia.

We spent almost a whole day by walking around the fortress. It was so nice! We had a picnic lunch with us and we sat down enjoy the food, sun, sights and a lovely breeze from the sea. I recommend Suomenlinna to everyone.

Here's couple pictures from up above. You can see these views of Helsinki from the Sokos hotel Torni and its Ateljee Bar.

Helsinki is Finland's main area for business, education, research, culture, and government. People speak both Finnish and Swedish in Helsinki, plus pretty much everyone speaks English as well. The currency used in Finland is euro.

Since it was a warm summer night, we walked around the downtown Helsinki and admired all the pretty buildings.

The white building on the left is the Finnish National Opera. It sit right by Töölönlahti (Bay of Töölö). There are really nice walking and biking trails around that area.

That's a little bit about Helsinki. There are many other cool places that I still haven't been to, so don't think that this was all about the capital of Finland. This was just a short introduction to show all the non-Finns that how our capital looks like. I hope you liked it!

I'm off to meet my friend now, and then tomorrow evening I will be cruising away to Stockholm. Kisses and hugs to everyone for now!