Finland

June 17

Today we had a tour called Helsinki Highlights and Country Home Visit. I ordered breakfast again and this time just got two blueberry muffins each, cranberry juice for me and coffee for B. Again it came before the wake-up call. We were up in the lounge by 0815 for the 0830 tour. They make us get in line somewhere outside the starboard side of the theater (which on this ship is somewhat confusingly called the Queen's Lounge) and go all the way around to the port side to get stickers. This is annoying.

ticket - front and back

There are a lot of things about this ship that aren't as nice as the other HAL ships I've been on. For instance, there's no butter knife or fork for the butter at the table - you have to use your own knife to get butter. The decks are labeled differently too. Normally the Lower Promenade deck is deck 6. On this ship it is deck 3.

Wednesday

We got on the bus and had a city tour.

Home 4 You (Finish Home Depot?)

Granddaughters picture from the bus

Statue of Gunnar Bärlund - Finnish heavy weight boxer who competed in the 1932 Summer Olympics

Roof worker

Paavalin Church

The guide pointed out a cemetery where one part was Russian Orthadox (where the crosses had three cross pieces - one at the top, a longer one a little lower, and a slanted one down near the bottom),

Russian Orthodox cemetery

and one part was Lutheran where there were no free standing crosses. We saw a store which I thought sold fishing tackle called Wirginia Oy.

Wiginia Oy

Some of the stop lights instead of being red had a lighted S in the middle of the lens. The guide said that there was considerable road construction because they could only work in the summer.

Summer construction

Trolley

Yellow VW

We drove out into the country

Countryside

and where there were hay bale covered with white plastic, the guide said these were tractor eggs and would hatch into lots of little tractors.

Tractor eggs

I wish. Although they did look a little like that. The Fins call it AIV-feed after to Mr. A. I. Virtanen who invented the system and got the Nobel price for his achievements (1945). There was what looked like lupine growing on the sides of the road.

Wild lupine

We stopped at an old church (Porvoo Cathedral) which there was supposed to have been someone to let us in, but apparently no one had gotten the word, so we just took pictures of the outside.

Old church

Old church

Top detail

Facade of the old church

Church door

Detail of the stones around the window

Camera surveillance sign

The church is one of the oldest in Finland from 15th century. The roof was burned in 2006 causing huge damages. The arsonist got over six years prison.

Monument

Flowerpot

There were memorial stones for those that died in 1939-1940 during WWII.'

WWII graveyard

Lupine next to the graves

We also took photos of the newer church which was across a field from the old one.

New church across the road

New church

We were going to a farm in the countryside. I couldn't hear the speech the lady made welcoming us because we were in the back of the bus and they didn't give her a microphone.

Inside the bus

Fountain on the farmhouse grounds

Old car at the farmhouse

Front Porch of the house

Our hostess

Grandaughter on the porch

Broom

Carved bear

They gave us a snack - tea or coffee, egg butter (which was like a deviled egg spread for little pieces of Carelian pie which was like rye bread,

Egg butter

rhubarb bread and a kind of home made ice cream. We sat and ate outside at a little table on the porch. My granddaughter toured the house and took photos.

Donuts in the kitchen?

Kitchen

Photos in the house

Living room

Bedroom

Study

Trays on the wall

B went downstairs and looked at their sauna,

Near sauna and Bathroom laundry

and also took a lot of pictures of flowers.

Little flower

Purple flower

Pansies

I told her the old story that if you held a buttercup under your chin and your chin turned yellow that meant that you liked butter. She had never heard that, so we demonstrated. All in all it was a nice visit.

My granddaughter likes butter

After we got to the city,

Helsinki street

we went to the Temppeliaukio Church (i.e. Church of the Rock). Apparently it was originally planned to blast out a place in the rock for a church.

entrance

But the winning architects (brothers Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen) had a better idea. They put the church inside of the rock.

through rock

The church was built inside a massive block of natural granite. The walls of the building were blasted from the inside and topped with a large copper dome (which when I showed photos of it to people one of the comments was that they were lucky that the copper had not been stolen).

coiled copper ceiling

The structure is barely visible from outside, with only the copper dome poking out of the rock. Natural light floods the interior through 180 vertical glass window panes that connect the dome and granite wall.

Altar

Organ

Silence Please

The ceiling was a coil of copper tubing which we were told made the acoustics perfect and and it is a popular venue for music concerts.

Inside the Temppeliaukio Church

It was consecrated in 1969 and is one of Helsinki’s most popular tourist attractions with over 500,000 annual visitors.

Souvenir stands

After that we had a stop at Senate Square

Senate Square and the Government Palace

Statue detail on St Nicholas church

Side of Senate square

which is enormous. There are four buildings designed by Carl Ludvig Engel (1778-1840): Helsinki Cathedral, the Government Palace, the main building of the University of Helsinki and the National Library of Finland. A statue of Alexander II (1894) stands in the middle of the Senate Square.

Alexander II statue

Alexander II

Three smiths

Marina in Helsinki

Goslings

B took 340 pictures and I took 310.
It was about 1430 when we got back and B went to our room while I went up to the Lido for lunch.

Lido lunch

Cake and Fruit crisp for dessert

We passed Nahkiainen which is a 79 foot tall round cylindrical concrete tower, incorporating keeper's quarters, with lantern, two galleries, and a helipad on top of the lantern. Upper half of the lighthouse painted red, lower half white.

Nahkiainen

Dinner was formal tonight,

Granddaughter getting ready for dinner

and B said that her father had told her that we would have dinner with the Captain. I don't think so. Anyway I had the

Seafood and Artichoke Vol au Vent

and the chilled Raspberry Soup and we both had the

King crab legs

For dessert I had what was called the

Master Chef's Chocolate Swan

but it was a disappointment.

After dinner we went to see the pianist in the theatre and B loved this and afterwards went to meet the guy and shake his hand.

Late sunset

This was a Successful Day.

Tomorrow we visit Stockholm