A last look at Helsinki

My most recent trawl around Helsinki uncovered several pleasures but, The Saint statue apart, no real delights. Somehow as a city it seems to lack something. That may be because it was a Sunday and it may be because I am used to the hustle and bustle of London but Helsinki does not attract me in the way that, for example, Prague, Riga and Copenhagen do.

All that said, Helsinki is plain rather than ugly and there are some parts of it that are really quite nice, such as the area around the opera house and the main promenade to the harbour. And dotted around the city centre are some very attractive buildings, such as this one.

A walk in the park

I like walking and I like parks so I was delighted when a work event included a guided walk in Koli National Park in Finland. Our walk was over hills, through trees and across meadows on the west side of Lake Pielinen. From the tops of the hills we got views like this of the lake, its many many islands and, in the distance, Russian hills.

The day was shaped by water. It rained several times during the walk, at times quite heavily, which meant that we had to walk around or through puddles and temporary rivulets. Water lay in small still pools and cavorted down streams. We pulled water from a well for our coffee. The lake came in and out of view all day. And the hike ended with a hot sauna and warm showers to, so I was told, provide relief to our muscles.

The other three elementals played their parts too; we walked and scrambled over the earth, drank in the fresh air and cooked our lunch over an open fire. It was back to nature but in a good way and with the support of modern technology, like waterproof coats :-)

The Saint in Helsinki

A work trip to Finland gave me the opportunity to spend a few hours walking around Helsinki to discover new sites and to revisit some old favourites, such as the Opera House.

Just behind the Houses of Parliament I came across the famous Saint stickman working as the doorkeeper to an underground car park. This is why I always carry a camera with me.

My Finish is pretty poor but I think that the car park belongs to the Houses of Parliament which, if true, gives that saintly figure serious recognition.

Helsinki cathedrals

Thursday seems to be the best night to be away from home. I'm not sure if it is because my colleagues have had enough of my company and so find excuses not to go out with me in the evening or if their excuses are true and they really are tired and want to spend a quiet evening in the hotel, but I always seem to get Thursday evening to myself to walk around the city, take lots of photos and enjoy the occasional beer in a lively bar.

Tonight I headed out of the hotel away from the city centre to explore more of the nearby park (Kluuvi Gloet).

This led me to part of the harbour (there is an awful lot of harbour in Helsinki) that I had not been to before and I followed the path along the harbour-side as it curved gently back towards the city centre.

The path leads straight to the impressive brick Uspeski Cathedral on the water-front at which point I headed into the narrow roads on the east-side of the city centre. All the roads there seem to lead to another cathedral (pictured) that towers over Senate Square. A really impressive building in a really impressive setting.

The evening was only let down by the latest moronic outpouring from Bush; this time he is threatening Iran for supplying Iraqi opposition forces with weapons only hours after it was admitted that 190,000 USA weapons have gone missing and are presumed to be in opposition hands.

Back in Helsinki

I'm back in Helsinki this week for a series of meetings with the client that are going rather well. I'm in a different hotel this time and this one is just across the road from the Finnish National Opera (pictured). Despite the Art Deco feel to the opera house it is actually a fairly new building having been completed in 1993.

The opera house is set in a park that is bounded on one side by a lake (Finland has over 186,000 of them!) with a fountain in it. The path through the park takes you to the city centre, i.e. the railway station, in ten minutes. I went for a stroll there this evening taking advantage of the fact that it stays light until quite late at night to see some more of the city and to get some exercise before returning back to the hotel to make use of their free broadband connection.

Last night in Helsinki

With my two colleagues doing other things this evening I was able to have a longer stroll around Helsinki and got a much better impression of the city.

All of it looked as though it could be somewhere else in north and eastern Europe and nothing really looked especially Finnish and there does not seem to be an obvious central place, like there is in, say, Prague, Gdansk or Copenhagen.

Because of this it is hard to recommend Helsinki as a holiday destination but it is a good place to work and I could see me living here happily too.

A night in the old town

Had a good long walk around the old town of Helsinki (that's the bit at the southern end just to the east of the main docks) tonight and saw lots of nice buildings, including these which rather caught my attention. The rain and overcast sky take a lot of the colour out of the picture but some of the joy of these buildings still comes through.

Took a food break in a little bar that was probably trying to be English, there is a Newcastle Brown sign outside, but it sells Finish lager so it's OK. Had a seasonal pizza, i.e. one with asparagus on it.

Now back in the hotel busy catching-up with all my on-line duties :-)

I like northern Europe a lot

Work has taken me to Denmark many times and a few times to Norway, Sweden and Finland; which is fine with me because I really like the region.

I like the clean modern look to everything (even things that are quite old), the many open spaces, the abundant street art (like this in Helsinki) and the way that many people walk and cycle.

The old towns are very nice too and I am particularly fond of Riga and Gdansk, even though most of Gdansk had to be rebuilt after the wall and so is mostly new buildings that deliberately look old.

First day in Helsinki

OK, so it's not really my first day in Helsinki but it's the first day that I've been here for almost eleven years and it is the first day of a full working week here (and, yes, I do know that it's a Bank Holiday back in the UK).

Work has started well and, as this is not a work related blog, that's all that I want to say about that.

I'm loving Helsinki already but then I knew that I would as I love the clean lines and modern look that pervades all of the Nordics.

Firefox knows that I am in Finland and is showing me all the menu items in Finish. Wierd!