Hi, everyone!
It’s didn’t take very long to sail from Tallinn Estonia to Helsinki Finland, so MS Marina was already docked when the sun came up! We took a long guided walk that started in Senate Square. In the oldest part of the city, every block is named after an animal. That helped people find their way, back when most of them never learned how to read!
There is lots of public transportation in Helsinki — buses, trams, ferries, subway and rail lines! The train station was designed by Eliel Saarinen. His son Eero designed the chapel at the Air Force Academy, among other US buildings. Our guide told us that the Stone Men get decorated for current events. They wore masks during the early days of Covid and got bandaids on their arms when vaccinations started! Saarinen designed some spaces for fancy restaurants in the train station. Now there’s a Burger King in one of the spots!
Finnish folklore is all written down in the Kalevala. Lots of buildings have decorations inspired by the creatures in that book. I made friends with some of them!
We stopped for a snack at the cafe in the Concert Hall, walked past an open air market and looked at the National Library building. The street we were on was named for Mannerheim, who helped the Finns gain independence from Russia.
Helsinki has lots of interesting buildings! There’s an underground museum with a sculpture made of chairs draped over the next building. The Kampii chapel is designed to be a place to get away from city noise. There are counsellors in the lobby for people who need to talk about their problems. Helsinki hosted the 1952 summer Olympic Games, and there are white buildings all over town built as sports venues for that. I liked the rainbow park bench!
One of the most unusual buildings we visited was Rock Church! The site chosen for the church was naturally rocky, and the architects who won the design contest built the church under those rocks!
From Rock Church, we walked to a pretty park on the shore of the Baltic sea. Our guide told us that people bring their rugs to wash in the sea, then wring them out with the public rollers!
We ended our walk at the Sibelius memorial. Jan Sibelius was a famous Finnish composer. The artist who won the competition to honor him designed a sculpture that looked like a birch forest. Some people thought the memorial should include an image of Sibelius, so she added that later. by the time we finished our walk, I was happy to get back on the tour bus!
When we got back to MS Marina, Grandma took a photo of Grandpa and me on the balcony of our cabin. Can you see us? Then I made a sign to welcome Mr. Penguin and Odie at tea time. At first I thought they weren’t going to come, and I was happy when they did!
After tea, Grandma and I went to the end of the Art Scavenger Hunt, where all the answers were revealed. Grandma and I had been cooperating with a group of other hunters. We were all right about every single picture! Grandma got 40 Big O points for our perfect score! Later our butler brought me chocolate-dipped strawberries! That was a nice end to our day in Helsinki!
The next morning, we were sailing through the Swedish archipelago on our way to Stockholm. There are lots of islands in this part of the Baltic sea, and Stockholm is partly built on 14 of them!
We had a very busy day! In the morning, we took a bus tour around Stockholm to see the outsides of some of the famous buildings. Then we visited the Vasa Museum!
The Vasa was a big Swedish warship that was launched in 1628 and sank minutes into its first trip. In the 1960s, the ship was discovered on the bottom of Stockholm harbor. It took years to figure out how to raise, restore and preserve it, but now it is on display in a cllimate-controlled building. It probably capsized and sank because the king kept asking for changes to make the ship look more impressive. That made the ship top- heavy, so the first wind it encountered blew it over!
We went back to MS Marina for lunch, but then we did a second tour, to the site of the oldest part of Stockholm, Gamla Stan. First, we toured the royal palace. The kings and queens haven’t lived there for a long time, but it is used for government meetings and receptions. Like many other buildings we saw, the outside is under repair! The building is actually the second palace on the site. The first one burned down in the 1600s. The plans for rebuilding were done right away, but it took about 60 years for the work to be complete.
The palace has over 600 rooms! The public rooms faced the outside and were very fancy. The royal family actually lived in private rooms behind those public rooms, and they were homier and easier to heat. I could tell that the French palace at Versailles was a big influence on the decorations in the public rooms! There is one room decorated in Swedish contemporary style from 25 years ago.
After we toured the palace, we walked around the narrow streets of the old city. We saw a shift of the palace guard marching away, and I made friends with the Iron Boy statue. Our guide said that in winter, people dress him in different warm clothes every day! We saw the emblem for people who paid the fire brigade to come help them first and a rune stone. Our guide said rune stones were like the social media postings of their day — a very long time ago!
We stopped in a plaza with a very bloody history. Now, it’s where the Nobel Prize for literature is announced each year. There were yummy baked goods in the window of one store! By the end of our second tour of the day, Grandpa and I were done walking and sightseeing!
We didn’t get back to MS Marina in time for tea, but we did get to Big O point redemption. Grandma got two long-sleeved t-shirts for her big O points! That was our last night on MS Marina. On Sunday morning, we got ready to leave! We took a long bus ride to the Stockholm airport. Our flight to New York City was eight hours long! In New York City, we just had enough time to get through arrival procedures before our final flight back to Rochester. It feels good to be home, but our bodies haven’t caught up with the change in time zones yet!
Yesterday, the door for the front of the boat house arrived! I helped Grandma and Grandpa move the kayaks and the powerboat out of the way so the installers could work. Then I helped Grandma harvest more basil. We made pesto again when we got back to Fairport! While we were in the Baltic, the weather changed from summer to fall. That happened here at home, too!
Love,
Lion-san
I like that chair sculpture and some of the architecture you saw. We never got to Helsinki but lived in Sweden for a year. We saw the Was a being sprayed with preservative 24/7 while we were there. Decades we went back and saw it as you saw it.
Lion-san needs to learn the difference between a penguin and a puffin! Just sayin’!
Looks like you all had a wonderful trip and obviously are glad to be home. It is nice to go away and nice to return home.
Grandma did a lot of work taking all those pictures while following tour guides. Good job, Grandma!