Day 25 - Seeing the Sights of Helsinki

Today was day two of my two-day Hop-on-hop-off (HOHO) bus ticket. After finding a quick breakfast (with a BIG cup of tea!), I hopped on at the stop nearest where I am staying (where I had hopped off yesterday) and went as far as the stop for ‘The Church of the Rock’ - the Temppeliaukio church. The architecture was absolutely incredible and worth the entry fee. The church is, as the name suggests, built into the rock, and has an impressive copper dome. The pictures don’t really do it justice, but here are some pictures anyway!

I then had a bit of a wander, very much enjoying the souvenir shops! I was particularly happy to see ‘Anne’s shop’ including a Christmas room. Mum would have approved!

I also very much enjoyed meeting another Coco delivery robot as I walked. This time I made a video (I’ll put it on insta) and am already scheming how I could use one of these in the UK…

A short trip on the HOHO took me next to the Sibelius monument - another impressive design feat. It was VERY hard to get good photos as there were a lot of people trying to get photos, and lots of people who liked standing by the monument - fair enough!

It was a slightly longer ride on the HOHO next, as I returned to the first stop at Senate Square, home of Helsinki Cathedral. The cathedral is currently having work done to it, but is still very impressive from the outside. If I am honest, the inside didn’t quite have the same ‘wow’ factor (especially for €10 entry!), but it did give me shelter from a rain shower, and the organ was seriously impressive.

My final stop of the day was the Museum of Helsinki, not least because there is a geocache hidden in the museum. There were two main exhibitions in the museum - one on Helsinki over the past 200 years, and another on waste and recycling, which was actually really cool! And yes, I did find the geocache!

It was about a 20 minute walk back to my accommodation then, including passing the famous Stockmann’s department store, and befriending a guy called Shay who helped me find a geocache!

It was then time for a bit of a rest before heading out to dinner, from where I now type.

The weather is supposed to be good tomorrow, so I am hoping to try some outdoor swimming and saunas! Did you know that there are over 3 million saunas in Finland? That’s for a population of 5.5 million. There are more saunas than cars….. For more fun sauna facts, come and read tomorrow’s blog entry!

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