Helsinki

Lutheran Cathedral

We're staying in the midst of the harbor at the Scandia Grand Marina. We toured the city by bus in the morning. The usual set of museums, train station government buildings and churches. We saw the interior of the Lutheran Cathedral and heard the organist playing. We stopped at the Sibelius monument, their favorite composer. Colors would bring different notes to his head, his favorite color was green. The monument is made of 600 steel pipes meant to resemble birch trees, but also looking like organ pipes.

Monument to Sibelius

A new tourist attraction is the Rock Church, officially Temppeliaukio Church. We enjoyed a performance by their youth choir.

In the afternoon we walked through the fish market. We remember visiting 20 years ago passing the fish stalls and being overwhelmed by the smell of … strawberries. The market now has more tourist stalls and less fish, but we were disappointed because the overwhelming smell of strawberries was missing. We did, however, enjoy a lunch of crepes and gelato. Later I explored further, looking for the quaint “Colorado Bar” with its steer skulls that we had found last time we were here. Now there is a modern bar with a neon sign “Colorado on the Rocks”, but they didn't even sell Coors. Final stop was the Uspenski Eastern Orthodox Cathedral on the hill near the harbor.

Usbenski Cathedral

A video of this trip is available on youtube. 

One of the interesting things about traveling is the surprises that you encounter. What were our surprises? People diving into the harbor because of the hot weather in Oslo and the Vigelund Sculpture Garden, the sound of the fiddle in the Hanseatic assembly rooms, the small passages that our ship could maneuver, the highlights of the cruise being after 10 PM in the midnight sun, the World War II museum with Nazi Christmas ornaments, and the story of the Sami people in Lapland. Finally, it was really great to have everyone understand our American English!