Our first full day around Helsinki just took us for a walk around town, through the open air market in the Market Square near the pier and stopping for lunch and people watching. All the cafes along the Pohjoisesplanadi (the main thoroughfare down to the pier) had seating facing out toward the street. Everyone faced the same direction, perfect for people watching, but odd to see.
We took a ferry over to
Soumenlinna Sveaborg. This is rather like the Kastelette we visited in Denmark, a large island fortress. Soumenlinna, a 250 year old fortress built during Swedish rule, is a world heritage site. With the days so long, it was just nice to lazily stroll around the island, onto the granite lining the shore, enjoy a few pear ciders (which the Fins really know how to make a good pear cider) and seeing our twins everywhere we look! This is the first place Mark and I have visited that we could easily pass as natives.
We ended up having dinner at a Lapland themed restaurant, the first one recommended to me was closed on Sundays (as were many places in Helsinki), but we ended up at
Lappi. Here we enjoyed eating northern Finland delicacies of reindeer and elk, with dessert of a farmers cheese served with cinnamon cream and cloudberry jam. The reindeer wasn't what I was expecting it to be. I thought it would be quite gamy, like deer, but it was much more beef like in flavor, but extremely lean.
On a recommendation a friend received on the flight over we found our selves later in the evening at the Arctic Ice Bar. Mark joked that we'd be in the bars freezer, which wasn't far from the truth. Yes it was small, but pretty cool (pun intended). Clearly it's a place for tourists to come in, have a few frozen giggles with a vodka drink, take a few nutty photos and be on our merry way. They fortunately provided capes to where to keep warm, I ended up wearing Mark's cape too. Note to self, next time I plan to be in a bar made entirely of ice, don't wear open toed sandals.
