Suomenlinna
Today we visited Suomenlinna, a cluster of little islands that were fortified in the 18th century to protect Helsinki from attack. Ambling around this mixture of old red brick barracks, hefty stone fortifications, and trees and grassy slopes is very pleasant, with the sea usually visible on one side or the other. The trees are at the stage of dulled green that says autumn is on the way, though the day was pleasant enough with the odd patch of sunshine. There are dry docks, big old cannons, plenty of little cafes for drink stops, and we managed to dedicate four hours to a very thorough exploration.
The sea views, leafy trees, scatter of old buildings, bright sunshine and hint of autumn made the day strangely pleasant for being rather a low key attraction. I’m reminded of trips to Brownsea Island back home, which we usually did around September.
Wood church
I didn’t find either of these modernist churches to be particularly inspiring, I feel there are probably more effective ways to capture the spiritual in architecture. To be fair, the rock church is somewhat spoiled by having an admission ticket booth and a steady stream of tourists far exceeding its capacity to soak them up – something that gigantic gothic cathedrals do with much more ease.
Later and drier we went back out for dinner. Helsinki is like much of Europe; restaurants open on Sunday evening are as rare as hen’s teeth. I think in fact it’s almost worse than a French city, and that’s saying something! Apparently the law says you have to pay people double to work on a Sunday. This might explain a lot.
So I was really surprised when the one we eventually found, Roster, turned out to be another bloody good supper.
Guns of Suomenlinna
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