Suomenlinna Sveaborg

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Arriving back in Helsinki we had a day to fill in before boarding yet another ship!  So we spent our day on the Suomenlinna Sveaborg island fort in the Helsinki harbour.  To get there we caught a small ferry that only took about 15 minutes. 

We spent the day exploring the islands.  There were still some cannons and lots of tunnels that you could walk though.  It was easy to get lost in the tunnels and pop out in some unusual places on the island. 

Allan, Corban and Leo went inside a WWII submarine.  It was funny when Leo came out to examine how the submarine was held up on the land, he wanted to know how they got it in the water and when would he be going under.  I think he was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t actually working.  Allan got a good knock on the head when he stood up in one part.

After we had finished on the island it was back to Helsinki to pick up our car and board another ship, heading to Estonia.  This time we didn’t board the ship until almost 9pm and we were all so tired from our Russian adventure that we simply had showers and went to bed.      

Home Exchange: Finland

Absolutely loved our Home Exchange in Finland.  Our home was about 18km from Helsinki city in a rural type location.  Although we got out and about in the city, hiking in the forests and swimming in the lakes we also spent more time at the house because it was such a lovely and relaxing place. 

The kids enjoyed the swimming pool, play house, trampoline and being able to watch cartoons in Finnish on the TV.  We ate almost every meal outside other than the odd day with heavy rain, thunder and lightning.  Finland turned on the weather for us, it has actually been the hottest summer in 50 years. 

There will be no blog posts for about a week as we are not taking our laptops to St Petersburg.  We will be on the move with 3 over night ferry crossings, a few nights in hotels before arriving in Palanga, Lithuania next Sunday.  We’re all looking forward to the ferry rides, they are heaps of fun.  This ferry has a swimming pool, variety of musicians/bands and a cabaret. 

Hiking Finland

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Exploring the forests and swimming in the lakes has been our goal for the past four days.  The hiking tracks and wildlife in Finland are very beautiful with 100’s of lakes dotted throughout the different areas.

One of our hiking days took us to the Astuvansalmi rock paintings.  It was a 6km hike to the paintings, once again we were hoping to see some interesting wildlife like flying squirrels but we only managed to see some birds, more wild mushrooms and wild berries.  This site is one of the biggest bedrock painting sites in the Nordic countries.  The paintings are located on some steep bedrock about 10 metres above the lake, it is estimated that the paintings are between 4500 – 6000 years old.  The paintings are quite faint and are mostly of mystic figures, elks, human figures and handprints.  We are glad that we got to see them as we imagine in the not to distant future it will be unlikely that they’ll still be there. 

Alongside this we did a couple of other tracks in two different national parks not to far from our home.  On one of our hikes a thunder and lightning storm came over, it was amazing listening to the thunder it was so loud!  Luckily there was plenty of time to get back to our car and it didn’t start raining until we where home.  Corban and Leo have loved being leaders and following the markers and signs on the tracks.

Tomorrow we are getting ready to move on again.  We have been in Scandinavia for slightly over four weeks and will begin the journey home on Monday, although this is not the end of our holiday!  Our route home takes us to St Petersburg, Russia and then through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuanian and Germany.  We have already brought tickets for the Russian Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre, booked a walking tour and have tickets for the Hermitage Museum (largest museum in the world). 

Helsinki Holiday

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Our first day after the overnight ferry ride was spent swimming and lounging around the pool.  Corban has learnt to hold her breath and swim down to pick up objects from the bottom of the pool, she can also now do underwater somersaults.  She is very pleased with herself. 

We moved from the pool to Lake Saaksjarvi on our second day.  This is the nicest water we have swum in this holiday.  The water comes from a natural spring and was clear and warm, we plan to come back.  Leo was exhausted from all our travels and even had a little sleep on the beach.  Taylor enjoyed jumping off the high dive boards and everyone loved cooling off in the water and building sandcastles.

This time we took the bus into the main city of Helsinki.  The city is relatively modern and not very big.  It was very easy to follow our own walking tour of the main locations.  We loved the markets down by the harbour.  There were lots of huge Artic Salmon steaks cooking, little salty fish and even reindeer meat.  Alongside this we saw lots of hand made crafts, reindeer antler and rug souvenirs.  Something slightly different that we saw today was a church carved into stone.  It was very beautiful on the inside and had a man playing beautifully on the piano. 

Day four saw a change in the weather, it was still hot but probably the longest and loudest thunder we have ever heard.  The thunder and lightning didn’t set in until the afternoon so we managed a lazy morning followed by a nature walk in the forest.  The signs indicated that we could possibly see some interesting animals like eagles, lynx (like a bobcat), otters, moose … but we didn’t see anything other than giant ant hills.  Corban and Leo also collect wild berries and mushrooms.  I learnt that wild berries and mushrooms are really strong tasting and we probably need to learn how to cook them properly rather than just taste them raw.          

Ferry From Stockholm To Helsinki

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Catching the ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki was AWESOME.  Once on board the ship we quickly put our bags in our cabin and headed up to the main decks.  It was a little pricy buying drinks (24 euro) but nice to sit out on the deck as we cruised through the archipelago.  It was amazing how the huge ships have to navigate through all of the little islands, most of which had houses, at some points we felt very close to the islands.  The sunset photos with Corban and Leo were taken at about 10pm at night.  The other sunset was just before midnight!  We have noticed that the nights are becoming slightly longer.  There was lots of entertainment on the ship with several bands playing, gaming rooms, karaoke and decks where you could just admire the view.  Taylor was a little scared of traveling by ship and figured out were the life jackets were and made an escape plan, after a couple of hours she relaxed and enjoyed the trip.  Our cabin had 4 beds, Corban and Leo were very happy to share.