Helsinki, Finland

The next day we headed into port at Helsinki.  We had booked a private tour here and then our port time changed.  We were going to get there over three hours late.  Luckily they were really nice and were able to switch it to our 12:30 departure of the boat.  We went through a tour company and I would highly recommend them!  They were awesome and cost less than an excursion on the boat.

Heading into town from the boat.  Finland has a population of 5.3 million, 1.3 million are living in Helsinki.  It was founded in 1515 because of the port, they built a castle to stop boats coming through.  Another interesting fact, woman received the right to vote in 1906 - the 2nd in the world after the United States.  They also had a woman president for 12 years - they do 6 year terms and a max of two.

There are over 700,000 boats that are registered in Finland and those are only the registered ones.

One of the islands off in the distance.

This is a restaurant and hotel - they have 1 million saunas and summer houses and over 188,000 lakes.

This is their Market Square - I am told it is one of the best and sells anything from food, clothes, homemade trinkets, etc.  We only had three hours there so not quite enough time to stop in.

Looks like lots of fun!!!  The ship is a restaurant.

This is the old Port office building.

This is the Uspsenki Cathedral built in 1868.   It is the largest Orthodox cathedral in Western Europe.

The interior was beautiful!!  Unfortunately we couldn't go all the way inside because they were getting ready for a religious ceremony for the next day, but still beautiful!

I just really like this fountain, it shows a boy care free sliding down the tail of a fish!

This is the three blacksmith statue.  Rumor has it that if a virgin passes a hammer will hit the anvil.

This is the statue of Mannerheim, Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim was a great Finnish military leader during Finnish Civil War, Regent of Finland and WWII.  He was also the sixth president of Finland and voted the greatest Finn of all time.

They had some beautiful architecture there.

This statue of Alexander II is in the Senate Square.   It was built in 1894 to commemorate his reestablishment the Diet of Finland in 1863, as well as his initiation of several reforms that increased Finland's autonomy from Russia.  He also opened schools and saved the Finish language.  They have two official languages in Finland, Finnish and Swedish.  Before WWII 40% spoke Swedish and 60% Finnish.  After it went down to 5.4% Swedish.  Though they still have to have everything in both languages including road signs, documents, etc.

These lights surround the statue, and for some reason I fell in love with them!

This is the Helsinki Cathedral which was originally built from 1830-1852.   If you are registered to this church you pay the government 1.5% in tax and then they take care of everything for that church, including salaries, up keep etc.  You can go there and not be registered.

You know me and organs, this one is the third biggest in Europe with more than 4,000 pipes.

Daddy and AJ playing on our bus!

The boys wanted a ride on this after they found out what it was, a pub on wheels!

This is the Sibelius Monument unveiled in 1967.  It took six years to make and was made by a women who welded over 600 pipes.  It weighs 24 tons.

Each pipe has a different design on it.

This is the face of the composer Jean Sibelius.  They wanted to only do the face to show the flow, the music of northern nature.

We then headed to the Rock Church.  That is exactly what it is, built in a rock.  It was planned before WWII but had to be put on hold.

AJ heading into the church.

Their organ, not nearly as big as the other one, but still cool.

Also because of this ceiling, this church has one of the best acoustics.  Many concerts, etc are played here because of that.  It is made up of  22 km of copper pipe.  The pipes are square and it weighs 9 tons.  The ceiling is 13 meters high.

The boys inside the church on the upper floor, you can see behind them the rock the church was built into.

David and I enjoying our time in Helsinki!

This was out in front of a museum.  They have over 94 museums in Helsinki alone and also over 70 libraries in Helsinki.

They ride bikes here a lot too, here is one with a baby car seat in it.  Another interesting fact is that all boys at age 19 have to give either 6, 9 or 12 months of their lives to the military no matter what.  They can delay it till after university, but they still must go.  We had a good time in Helsinki and learned a lot.  We headed back to the boat to get ready to head to Russia the next day!!