Day 2 Helsinki
Because I enjoyed the Tallinn walking tour I decided to do a free walking tour of Helsinki today as well. This was good because it started at 10am so it was the first thing I did today and still had plenty of time to do stuff in the afternoon.
I also made a point of not walking around the central city area last night knowing that I was going to do this tour. Which was good because we didn't cover any ground I had already walked.
This was another good tour. The guy wasn't quite the performer the Tallinn girl was but he was passionate and had plenty of info and some good stories And practical tips about places to eat or drink or visit. Helsinki, like Tallinn, has a lot of quite recent history. Like the civil war between the Communists and Not-Communists (which the Not-Communists obviously won in Finland). The city has made the choice to preserve things like damaged walls or monuments to embrace that history rather than repairing them. I like that approach.
Also - did you know that the Molotov Cocktail was invented in Finland? The Finns had no real way to fight Russian tanks but they noticed an air intake at the back of the tanks used to cool the engines. Someone figured out that if you threw a flaming bottle of booze into the intake it would throw the flaming liquid all over the interior of the tank. They basically turned the country's vodka bottling factories into Molotov cocktail factories to fight the Russians. Fascinating.
A couple of people from the hostel were doing the tour as well so we sort of hung around together during the tour. And afterwards I went and visited Suomenlinna Island with Lee (German girl) from the hostel.
The island is an old fortress that is now a unesco site. Lots of walls and tunnels and cannon emplacements. Fun and interesting place to walk around and it was nice to share that with someone rather than walking around alone for a change.
Spent a couple of hours there then headed back to the city where Lee went back to the hostel to pack her bag while I went off to the Helsinki Design Museum.
The design museum was quite small but I enjoyed the hour or so I spent there. The top floor was closed as they were renovating for a new exhibit so I got a discounted ticket.
They basically had two exhibits.
One was a bunch of items that were designed by Finns. A whole range of stuff. From high tech gadgetry for use in tree lopping trucks, to plates, chairs, computer games, Nokia mobile phones and fashion.
Downstairs was a temporary exhibit about a pair of Finnish scissors. Fiskar's is a famous brand of scissors in Finland apparently and they had a bunch of artists or designers do an artwork or something that is inspired by the scissors. There was a variety of artworks and it was a really fun and enjoyable exhibit.
Not the best museum in the world but a nice laid-back way to spend an hour.
After that I headed off to a craft beer bar that we walked past on the tour. Scott (Canadian) and Lee from the hostel and tour joined me. And later on a couple of other girls Scott met on the tour joined us as well. Another German and an Australian who were staying in a different hostel. It was a fun night and though it cost me a small fortune I really enjoyed working through their beer list.
What use is money if you're not going to spend it right?
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