Monday we found ourselves in Helsinki, Finland. Helsinki is the capital of Finland and it's most populous city, with a metro population of about 1.4 million!
We headed into the city center for a guided walking tour.
On the way there, we walked through this indoor market - it was early in the day and nobody was here. When we walked through in the afternoon on the way back, it was packed!
Bear salami or some smoked reindeer?
Lots and lots and lots of ocean treats
Our tour started here in a huge square below this Helsinki Cathedral
We arrived early to the meeting point of our tour and the square was quiet. It didn't take long for it to become very busy and crowded
This is the government's headquarters - like our White House. There was very little security and a pretty normal looking building.
These food stands with everything reindeer where everywhere!
People in Finland love to read.....books..not audio or ebooks - real books. They built a huge library in 2018. This was a small cafe inside the library - it was huge! It's also a sit down restaurant. They wanted the library to be a place where the people could go to congregate and spend time, especially in the winter when it was cold. You can check out anything you don't have at home here in the library. Things like musical instruments, video game consoles, board games, paintings and sculptures to put in your home, sewing machines, 3d printers, laser cutters, VR goggles, tools, recreational equipment, kitchen appliances and more. There are podcast rooms, a movie theater, meeting rooms, urban workshop space, and more. They use robots to shelve and transfer books from different floors. It was extremely busy!
Finnish people also love their saunas! It's a part of life. Finland has a population of 5.5 million people and there are about 3.3 million saunas - 1 sauna for almost every 2 people. There are more saunas than there are cars. It's normal for apartments, houses and workplaces to have saunas. Even this Ferris Wheel has two cars that are saunas! They are the two brown and black cars.
We then boarded a ferry for a 15 minute ride out to the Sea Fortress of Suomenlinna, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site of 6 small islands connected together. Suomenlinna is about 4 miles total, with trails, secret tunnels, cannons, towers, walls and museums. Suomenlinna was built in 1748 to defend against Russian invasions and expansion. There were a lot of battles here with Russia taking over, and then Finnish taking over and was eventually surrendered to the Russians in 1808. Finland got it back in 1917 when Finland became an independent country.
Finland claims they are the true home to Santa Claus and the reindeer who all come from northern Finland in Lapland, near the Russian border.
Steps walked today - over 9 miles
This was the stop with the most daylight. It 18 1/2 hours of daylight. It was close to the summer solstice (June 21) which the Baltic States celebrate as "Midsummer" and it's a bigger celebration than Christmas!
I guess they get to see Santa often though since he's really from here, so he's not that big of a deal to them
Steps walked today - 21,933 - about 10.28 miles
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