I've expressed in my last two or three trip diairies that involved Cape Town the weird sensation of being a tourist on a Sunday with more holiday the next day, while the rest of the city gets the Sunday blues. I was worried if that would happen to me. The weirdest part of that about Cape Town is that it is a massive tourist city, so while the locals may get sleepy on Sunday's, I remain surprsied just how quiet it gets on Sunday's. Budapest certainly wasn't this last Sunday, with the ruin pubs being a place that offered the perfect level of Sunday environment (being that I fully understand why say EDM clubs may stick to a Thu-Sat schedule). We'll have to see where Helsinki lands, but at least during the day it wasn't sleepy in the least.
Helsinki proper probably has three days of tourism, and I think I crossed out about everything on teh list (with the idea of going to Nuuksio National Park tomorrow). We started the day with venturing out to a different part of Helsinki, though of course, Helsinki is walkable enough that I could have easily gone there in past had I wanted. The first spot was the Sinebrychoff Art Museum, housed in the mansion that the Sinebrychoff family used to live in. Who is this family? Well, mostly a random wealthy landowning German/Finnish family, but in their time they comandeered a good art collection, which has been expanded upon to the museum that sits today.
The museum had effectively three parts - the first being the first floor and half-floor of the basement, with a special exhibit entitled "To Water and Waves" which was a series of art, mostly paintings, around water. This part was primarily Finnish artists, which is in stark contrast to the rest of the museum, and was an interesting view, especially how slowly water scenes became a more and more common part of the national artwork.
The second part was a trip through four or five rooms that have teh same furniture and look of what it was at the peak of the Sinebrychoff's family largesse, along with dozens upon dozens of mainly portraits. The one knock on this part of it was they didn't have any placards or anything to explain who painted what and who it was in the portraits. The final part was a more traditional art museum style space showcasing European art from 1300 - 1800 that made its way into the family collection. No huge names, but impressive lenght of time to have a collection encompass. Overall, it was a nice little museum - which generally seems to describe the museum experience in Helsinki quite well. I'll say this - get the Museum Pass as it is far more cost effective than paying entrance fees that individually are fairly expensive.
From there, I walked over the waterfront, which in this part of Helsinki is a bit more full on cargo port, so it wasn't notably pretty or anything. It did have what I had scoped out as my lunch option for the day, which was a burger and fries at Morton's. May seem a bit boring (and to some degree it is) but Morton's is elevated burger, and even more elevated fries, with incredibly kitschy naming and signage and what-not. The burger had this amazingly cooked onion and raspberry jam, and a great mustard, and the fries were seasoned beautifully, mostly with dill. Morton's was great, even if it wasn't maybe the most inspired option.
Post lunch, I headed back towards central Helsinki, first going to the Senate Square. Mainly it was to visit a shop (Okra Store) that has ceramics and other handicrafts, and it is then a 5-min walk to the waterfront housing the ferry to Suomenlinna Island, but also because I was hoping to give the Helsinki Cathedral inside another try, but this time I came when they were doing a Sunday service, so once again I can only leave imagingin what the inside may look like. Okra was a nice store, but I did find most things wildly overpriced, with the only saving grace a medium size platter was 21 Euro.
The next trip was my visit to Suomenlinna Island. The ferry is easy enough to get a ticket to, a reasonable queue and a dependable 15-min cadence, with the ride from one end to another being consistently 15 min - a truly well oiled machine. From teh ferry out, you can get a better sense of the Helsinki skyline - msotly a few towers from churces and then rows of buildings. Nothing too crazy, but still I would say more built than a Tallinn. The ride was lovely, with teh cool Baltic-sea breeze cutting through the 72-degree day (about 15 degrees hotter than what it normally is this time of year).
Suomenlinna island is really a series of 2-3 islands with narrow channels running between them. The entire area is walkable arounjd the perimeter within an hour, with some trails cutting through the middle as well. The main island where the ferry takes off from has some restaurants, cafes, buildings (the main lighthouse/tower) and a few of the garrisons that remain - there are six in all spread out across the island. The one downside is that with little exception there isn't much tree cover, so on a sunny day like today you get baked a bit. In the few makeshift beach areas many were taking full advantage fof this, but again for me as someone who packed thinking it was going to be a good 10-15 degrees cooler, this was rough. In the end though, a traipsing 90-minute or so walk through Suomenlinna was as good a use of the afternoon as anything else.
Back on the mainland, after another super pleasant ferry ride (seriously, like clockwork the ferry leaves every 15 minutes, as it is like a 13-minute ride between the two stops), I was back on the mainland, grabbing a quick classic salmon soup for sustenance, and then off to the final museum, and to some degree last touristy activity in Helsinki proper, with a stop at the Museum of Design, which was smaller than I expected, but certainly interesting. The bottom two floors highlighting a lot of Finland's contribution to design over the years, from having teh designer who invented/popularized the orb chair, to the Fiskars Scissors company, to Nokia and Angry Birds, to the Mekkimoko print, fashion company that is everpresent across Finland. The third floor was probably too conceptual for my taste, but did include a nice exhibit of a designer making 10 different style of chair. Overall, the design museum was a nice, if small space - something that to be honest describes all the Finland museums pretty well.
After a brief run to Kaisla for a couple brews (a nice, large beer hall with 24 beers on tap) and R&R at the AirBNB, I headed back downtown for my last full night of the trip. Why do I say this? Well, my flight on Tuesday morning is at 6:20 AM, so I probably need to be back home by midnight to get any sort of sleep tomorrow night. But tonight, and especially since my itinerary for tomorrow is somewhat small, is the key focus. Of course, it happens to be Sunday, but as we'll get to that wasn't as much an inhibitor here.
Dinner was at Ravintola Sarrota, which is traditional Finnish cuisine place in the shadows of Senate Square and the Helsinki Cathedral. The menu is classic Finnish food served well and that is what I got, first with their Classic Finnish Starter platter, and then Reindeer steak & sausage with elderberry. The platter was a little dabble of three fish starters - fried herring, a whitefish in mustard and then smoked salmon, then three veggies - a baked small potato, leek & dill salad, and a mushroom slaw, and then three meats - a blood sausage, beef tartare and lamb aspic (basically gelatinized lamb). It was all excellent. Mostly one to two bites for each of the nine things I mentioned, but adding up to a solid starter. The main was great as well, with thinly cut reindeer steaks, a reindeer sausage, a polenta type thing, and then the elderberry and reindeer jus. Great dish, great meal, in a great setting.
For after dinner, the plan was to start first at Liberty and Death, a third time there for me. It was fairly empty - first because most people were sitting outside until the 11pm outside curfew, and then because I guess it was Sunday. They close at 1am, I left at 12:15am as the only person, though as I walked out I pass a group of three walking in. The cocktails are excellent, if expensive (14 EUR a pop), but that seems to be par for the course in Finland.
After Liberty or Death was a combination let's go back and forth game between two spots next to each other, one being Gate A21, which I went to on the similarly quiet Tuesday, and the other Bar Loose, which is next door. Bar Loose is Rock and Roll themed, and while they didn't have live music tonight, played just the best playlist of rock music. They had a good beer selection and a good crowd, but after a beer from there I wanted a bit sharper drinks to round out the night, so I ewnt the 50 feet right towards Gate A21, which was great. It was fairly empty that Tuesday. It was quite packed today. Not as much as when I quickly went there on Friday, but you would be hard pressed to believe it was a Sunday, even at the point in time when I left at 2:20am (they close at 4:30am). They also have quite good cocktails, and it food the mood really well for my last truly late night activity, with a DJ playing great music (though more for background, no real space to dance) and a great Sunday night in Helsinki. For that alone, this place is rising up my list slowly.
