6/7 -- Explore Helsinki

We headed out this morning for a bus and walking tour of Helsinki. After surviving two cold weeks in Norway (especially in the north), summer has arrived and the weather actually seemed too hot this afternoon, but it will prepare us for Italy. The lilacs were all over and in bloom, reminding me how much I still miss being able to grow them at home.

 

The statue we saw yesterday and posted a photo of was a memorial to the 'WinterWar' in 1939 with Russia. The guide hated it because it had way too  many holes in the soldier. We visited the Jan Sibelius monument and park. The monument was designed by a woman back in the 60s or 70s and was totally non-traditional.

The pipes are not what you expect.

There is both new and old architecture here. I think our favorite place was the library which was about much more than books. The top floor is books with short stacks so you can see the whole floor, which is higher on each end. The second floor is work space. They have little and big meeting rooms,  four 3D printers (you only pay for the materials, which are pretty cheap), several kinds of sewing machines and an ironing board and several large format printers with different weights of paper. Truly amazing.

The library

Music Hall

Museum of Contemporary Art

Fish Statue at the Music Hall across the street from
something important.

Sculpture in the Music Hall

The wood facade of the Library curves in and becomes
the first floor ceiling (below)

 

3D printer

Collection of types of sewing machines. The large format
printers are to the left behind the ladies.

Uncomfortable looking, but somewhat popular seating area.

The floor of the 3rd floor is not flat and rises up on each end.|
The view deck was popular.

'Mobile' art --m there are 3 inflated sculptures on this
building, which will be shifted to other locations in
the future.

View from the other end of the deck. The white pillar is from
the Helsinki Olympics.

Above and below: views from both ends of the third floor.

 

Cool rocking chairs on the second floor.

The other building that was notable was the train station designed by Eero Saarinen. His son did several other buildings in the area too. The train station looked very art deco inside and out and featured a huge Burger King!

Front wall of the Burger King

Self-service kiosk

 We wandered around a bit more and saw another bunch of buildings before going back to the hotel.

I think something got lost in the translation here -- I
certainly didn't expect pizza at a Pancho Villa!

 

We had a break after the tour and then took a ferry to an island complex called Soumenlinna.  On paper, it looked really interesting and it has several museums, but it is really not well-organized for English-speaking visitors, though occasional display panels did include English. Finnish is unlike any other language I have ever tried to learn and is completely foreign to me. Danish and Norwegian have German roots and much of it made sense, but Finnish is really different and my phone refused to download an offline dictionary and when I needed it, I was out of 4G data range. It looks like it would be a great place for a picnic, but we ended up leaving a  bit earlier than planned.

Soumenlinna is a complex of 4 linked islands. We went to
the Naval Academy first and found several goose families,
each with a dad who threatened us as we tried to share the road.

 

One of the oldest continuous dry docks -- it has been in
use since 1756. Now used for storage and  renovation
of old wooden ships.

There was a submarine you could go in, but at this point,
all I wanted was to stop walking and get cool. While we
waited for the boat back, we had a Magnum bar!

Ariel sent me a photo of the group who had had dinner with Kati and Juha.

Back at the hotel, we started packing for our jaunt to Stockholm and getting ready for our final dinner with our fellow travelers. This has been a really fun group and we hope we will see some of them again in the future.