The Baltics Part I – Finland 🇫🇮

I’m flying to Helsinki to meet himself and kick off our Baltics tour. It’s a very early 5:55am flight to Amsterdam and then on to Helsinki. I originally had a direct flight from Dublin but it leaves at 6pm and I’d miss the whole day so I’m delighted to get there early enough to meet Shane as he arrives from Sydney and we get this party started! Alas my bag didn’t make it on the transfer from Amsterdam but while I’m waiting for Shane to arrive I can see the flight that I’ve been told it’s on so fingers crossed it’ll get delivered to the hotel tonight.

We go to Loyly which is a modern seaside sauna with a stylish, glass-walled restaurant & large deck for sweeping views. Luckily they have swimsuits for hire!!

We take a dip into what I’m reliably told is the Gulf of Finland. It’s cold but it’s not freezing and the sauna afterward is crazy hot but ultimately refreshing.

We have dinner booked at 8pm. We have a pineapple lonkero, also called long drink, which is a ready mixed drink made from gin and a flavoured soda. It’s really nice.

There’s reindeer on the menu but I opt for the fish soup paired with a delicious gruner veltliner. The place is busy and the dinner takes quite a while to come out but is very nice.

Next morning after a buffet feast at the hotel (Scandic Helsinki Hub), we take a bus to Porvoo which is about an hour away on the south coast of the country. Porvoo is the second oldest city in Finland. The town is famed for its “Old Town”, a dense medieval street pattern with wooden houses.

From the bridge we take a reflective shot in the river… later in the museum there’s a whole exhibit about silhouettes- I think we were ahead of the game here.

Porvoo is also known as Borgå which is the Swedish name for it and all the signs are in both Finnish and Swedish. It’s a warm sunny day and nice to walk along the river and look across to the town.

We climb up castle hill which has a lovely forest but alas no castle. In the peaceful Iso Linnamäki park above the town of Porvoo, it is difficult to imagine that this was the scene of fierce battles during the Great Northern War in the 1700s. Half a millennium before then, a castle dominating the entire Porvoo river valley stood on this site. It was probably built by the Swedes during their conquest of the east. There are steep-walled moats circling the top of the hill.

Coming back down the hill we come to the Porvoo cathedral. It’s an evangelical Lutheran church, built in the 15th century, although the oldest parts date from the 13th century. It’s closed so we can only admire from the outside.

Next door is the 1759 chapter house.

A lot of the restaurants are closed – possibly a combination of the summer season being over and it’s Sunday so we grab a snack in a little cafe. I try an egg and ham in a soft roll with horseradish and some other mystery meat thing – it’s very tasty.

Next we visit the museum in this very nice building.

We see paintings by Albert Edelfelt who is considered the most famous Finnish painter. He spent a lot of time in Porvoo and painted much of the landscape around.

We check out some of the old wooden houses and do a timer shot!

It’s been a lovely day in Porvoo and we take the bus back to Helsinki

We walk to the harbour to jog my memory of when I was here last but honestly it’s not feeling familiar! I am fairly positive I visited this iconic Russian church though.

Dinner tonight is a handy affair at a Gastropub called Stones. We all have burgers – I order reindeer and swap half with Shane’s moose burger. Both are delish but I think the reindeer has the edge. They also have all the flavours of the “original long drink” so we have the original or what is apparently the most popular which is with grapefruit. It’s very nice.

Next morning we leave Finland and take the ferry to Tallinn.

The 9am ferry departs at 8:50am so it’s lucky we were extra early arriving to the terminal this morning!!

The ferry journey is just over two hours and it’s very comfortable. Nice boat with lots of places to sit and enjoy the journey. We have a buffet breakfast from 10am with all the usual suspects for breakfast including an array of herring and other smoked fish!

Approaching Talinn – read more in the next blog – Baltics part II 😊