Helsinki, Finland

The Baltic Cruise

Our day at sea was pretty relaxing. We took naps and attended a couple of the “enrichment tours” talking about our upcoming stop in St. Petersburg, Russia. One talk was presented about the Hermitage and some of the artwork we could expect to see. I definitely got educated as I now know that if you see eggs in a painting, they are a sign of virtue. If they’re broken, then virtue has been lost.

Barry and Susanna (the couple from Flagstaff) met us for drinks and over a couple of martinis, we exchanged stories of our dining experiences, travel in general and opinions of the ship to date.

Our table at dinner was shared not only with Barry and Susanna, but with two women from New York. Both of them were very nice; one was a math teacher and one was a CSI tech who worked at one of the local police departments. From dinner, we all headed for the musical show in the Cabaret Lounge. After the show, I dragged Hank up to the Looking Glass lounge where it was karaoke night! We met up with Karen and Dan (two more Cruise Critic users) and sat near them. While neither Hank nor I were brave enough to pick a tune, we did hit the dance floor for some good old disco and rock and roll songs! I think we even ended up on the ship’s video of the evening although I haven’t looked to see if it’s been running yet. By the time we got done shaking booty, it was pretty late (or early in the morning actually) and time to call it a night.

Helsinki

The town was founded by King Gustavus Vasa of Sweden. Finland was a country never occupied by foreign forces during the World War II. When we got off the cruise ship, we used the ticket machine to buy two full-day tourist tickets for the tram that circled the city and hit most of the major historical sites. The tram pulled up and we jumped on. The entire system is pretty much on the honor system and you never even had to show you ticket - but heaven forbid if you were asked for it and didn’t have it! Both tickets were only about 14 Euros total and we felt that was a pretty good price to ride the tram all day and get on and off when you wanted. Definitely much cheaper than taking a tour.

We stopped at the Kauppatori (Market Square) which is a 19th century market where there were all sorts of vendors selling souvenirs, fresh fruit, purses, colorful flowers, fresh fish and just about anything you could imagine. The square was huge and there were certainly a lot of people out to shop. Right beside the square was a harbor with some replicas of old Viking ships, a couple of which are now actually hotels. We then went to Senaatintoir (Senate Square) which was in the heart of Helsinki and featured several styles of European architecture. Behind the square was Tuomiokirkko (Lutheran Cathedral) which was beautiful. It was finished in 1854 and is a Portestant church with a huge organ. We also saw Uspenski Cathedral which is an Orthodox cathedral built in 1868. The inside was gorgeous with so many statues and beautiful mosaics. The tram took us through the downtown area lined with shops and stores just like being in any major city. We went by Stockmann which is the largest department store in Finland and is compared to Harrods of London; we didn’t go in. After doing all these sights, we headed by to the ship for a late lunch and to drop our jackets since the day really warmed up. After lunch, we took the tram again and went by the National History Museum, the Opera House and the new Parliament building. We headed to Temppeliaukio Church (Church in the Rock). The church looks like it is coming right out of a huge rock. It has a copper top with skylights. It was very modern looking compared to the Orthodox church. I didn’t think it was as beautiful as the cathedral, but it certainly is unique. I did buy a small wooden reindeer for my garden window as a memento of Finland, land of reindeers.

After our full day of sightseeing, it was back to the ship where we had a letter from the cruise line saying that anyone on an independent tour for St. Petersburg needed to wait for the ship’s tours. We had been warned about this by the Russian tour company we’re using. So - we’re going to ignore. Now if you don’t see any more entries - call the embassy would you please and let them know we were captured in Russia?!