I wanted to write a bit about my trip to Helsinki in June and when I say bit, I mean that it will be in two parts with additional two extra posts that I will publish later this month. What can I say? This trip was amazing.

Helsinki Zoo

The first stop of the trip just had to be The Helsinki Zoo (Korkeasaari Zoo). It was a beautiful day and walking around the island (yes, the zoo is on an island) was amazing. The only not so amazing thing was how vile the coffee was that we bought there!

The Zoo is 22 hectares (about 54 acres) or in normal human language, it is ginormous. You can get there by ferry during the summer but we decided to go with a bus. The bus goes from the main train station and is decked out with the Zoo logo and some animals, you can’t miss it.

The Helsinki Zoo opened up in 1889 and has almost 200 animal species. I can’t say that we saw that many. A lot of the cages were empty and apparently many animals take a nap after lunch. After looking through the pictures I took I realized I didn’t take any pictures of the animals.

However, we did see their tigers, not only do they have a huge adult tiger but also three tiger cubs. The cubs are already a year old and were no longer small but they made up for it by being still adorable.

There is a lookout tower at what I assume is the highest point of the island and from there you can see over to Helsinki. It was well worth the steps.

We spent probably around 4 hours walking around looking at the animals, having some delicious ice cream and enjoying the sunshine. The signs for the animals are quite educational not only about the animal but also about their conservation work. I recommend spending a decent amount of time there just learning about the animals and the conservation work they are doing.

Suomenlinna

The day after the Zoo we just had to go to another island so we took the ferry to Suomenlinna (Sveaborg). There were so many people going to the island that we could not go with the first ferry that arrived but had to wait for the next one. I was quite worried that the island would be packed and not really enjoyable to walk around but I was quickly proven wrong. While there were people on the island it wasn’t too busy and there was a very relaxed atmosphere on the island.

  

Suomenlinna is a Unesco World Heritage Site and is situated just outside Helsinki, it takes about 20 minutes with a ferry to get there. The ferry is part of the Helsinki public transport system so if you buy their multi-day bus tickets they are valid to go to the island!

When you arrive on the island you can grab a map, something I would recommend, and just start walking around the island. There is a “Blue Route” that takes you to the main parts of the island. We followed part of it but it was fun just to wander around.

On the island there were several of houses (or storage units) that reminded me of the Icelandic turf houses except they were built out of rocks. I found it quite interesting since they are similar but at the same time completely different.

There are six museums on the island and we decided to go to the Military museum and the submarine that is a part of it. It took a long time to walk through the museum (there was a lot of reading material) but it was quite interesting since I didn’t know the long history of the wars that Finland has been in.

Walking through the submarine was much quicker but quite interesting since it was just so odd how small it was and that people were stuck inside them for such a long time. I am pretty sure I would not have survived!

 

There are several tunnels throughout the island that you can walk through. They are not lit at all and very narrow and dark. Walking through them was quite fun, and scary but you had to be quite careful of not banging your head on the ceiling or tripping on the stones on the ground.

The island is a popular picnic spot and there were a lot of people drinking and having fun. What we found odd was how they all sat on the rocks instead of the lovely soft grass that was much more comfortable than the rocks! We saw this all over the place and didn’t really understand why you would choose to sit on the hard rocks! Not complaining because that meant we could chill on the grass. It was just a funny thing to see.

What I found quite interesting both about the Zoo and Suomenlinna was how clean the toilets were. Not only were they free, and clean but there was also so many of them! I was happily surprised!

Until next time.

Katrin