Atelgee Rooftop Bar at Hotel Horni

This gives a fascinating history: https://www.hdf.fi/en/articles/hotel-torni-history

Libraries and Other Fun Finds

October 5

Today was departure day, but our ferry to Stockholm didn't depart until late afternoon. That meant more exploring! We decided to collect a couple more libraries. Rickhardinkatu Library was located near our hotel. The cool staircase shown above rose through the central section with wings out from that. It had great little nooks to read in and an inviting selection (mostly in Finnish I guess, but some in English). 

After dropping our luggage at the terminal, we headed out to the western center of the city. We walked there along the harbour and were amazed by the number of boats still in the water. We have seen photos of the water freezing over and wondered if this still happens, will the boats come out soon, or do they just stay in. Hmm. Over in this part of the city, we walked through a more permanent, and less touristy market hall. Kauppahalli Library was busy and featured some nice design work, but it was not as inspiring as the others we had seen. We poked in the church here, but unfortunately the tower was closed. In our library perusal today, John learned about a hotel that had a dirigible landing on it! This is reminiscent of the Industrial National Bank Building in Providence! Anyway, the story goes that only one dirigible attempted to land there (emphasis on attempted). It failed and no other attempts were made. There is now a rooftop bar there! We took the elevator to the top floor where we had to climb another level on an old spiral staircase which opened to this great little bar with big views. The hatch is still evident for where passengers would have disembarked. Very cool. We sat outside marveling at the view and also how much we walked around this big city!

We departed Helsinki on the Silja Symphony around 4:30. It was crazy how tight it was going through the surrounding islands. We explored all the nooks and crannies of the ship. We, like everyone else, are a captive audience. So we enjoyed a couple of drinks, sampled lots of different foods from the buffet, walked through the superstore, and caught a bit of entertainment. Ferry seems like a misnomer. It really seems more like an overnight cruise.

A Day of Walking! Saturday, October 3, Helsinki

In the morning, we ferried over to Suomenlinna, about a 15 minute ride. This island has a permanent settlement, but has a long history of being a fort and a prison through wars with Sweden, Russia, and a civil war. It was a drizzly day so a cup of fish stew and hot veggies at the open market when we returned to the city was welcome. 

From there we headed to a different part of Helsinki to see Temppeliaukio Kirk or the Stone Church. This church, which opened in 1969, is built in the ground and is made of stone. It has a street level entry but it was carved into a granite hill. The domed roof allows light to shine through skylights. Another architectural marvel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temppeliaukio_Church

Next stop was the Sibellius Monument. The sculptor wanted to accent Sibellius' connection to nature. See the above photo. We crossed the street to Cafe Regatta, a tiny place next to a brewing race area. We ordered veggie sausage (a stretch...soy skinny hot dog) and were able to roast it outside on a fire pit. Drizzly day...fire and hot food hit the spot. We followed the shoreline for quite some time until we came to the sandy beach of the city. That is pretty unusual here. We cut in to a beautiful cemetery and finally made our way back to the city center. We went to Half Moon Game Cafe to get off our feet and enjoy some new and familiar games.

Park Day! Nuuksio and Suerresauri

We spent the first half of the day outside of the city hiking in Nuuksio National Park. The landscape is both moss covered and rocky. There were a lot of birches as well as some aspen, maples, and pine. We skirted three pretty lakes while our guide educated us about various types of mushrooms and berries. We even had homemade soup with chantrelles as an end of hike.

Seurasaari was recommended to us as another interesting place to visit, so we caught the tram to the northwest corner of the city to check it out. It is an open air museum with many historic buildings representing the different time periods. Although the museum was closed and the buildings were inaccessible, we could still walk along the trails and read the plaques about them. This was a popular spot for locals. The sun had  finally made an appearance this afternoon. Lots of people were out enjoying--wandering like us, strolling, or jogging.

National Library of Finland

This library is also located in Senate Square. It is the oldest library in Helsinki. Compared to Oodi, it felt intimate and scholarly, but also as beautiful in its own right. 

Playing catch with Helios

Helsinki Cathedral

Helsinki Cathedral dominates Senate Square even though there are colorful neoclassical buildings all around it. As we climbed the steps, John made the fitting joke about Sophie and the dog from Howl's Moving Castle. There was so much to take in from the top. The trams going by in addition to the architecture gives it a retro feel, but Helsinki is far from that! Inside the cathedral, everyone's attention was riveted by Helios an artistic rendering of the sun which has a diameter of  ~23 feet. https://my-helios.org/about/