Before I start banging on about Helsinki, I keep forgetting to write about the so called “white nights” phenomenon that we have had the pleasure of experiencing over the past few days. Basically this is when the sun sets at some ungodly hour (think it’s around 12 30am) only to rise again 2/3 hours later so effectively you are sleeping in broad daylight, messes around with your body clock I must say!
Anyway, Helsinki, for some unknown reason when I visualise of the city, I think modern architecture. This is partly true, however, there are sights i.e. old brick churches mixed in too and it works surprisingly well.
As usual, we docked at the port around 2 miles from the centre so decided to scrap the “walking into the centre” idea and simply stroll around the various harbors. Despite this, it actually turns out that the road we were walking along ends up in the centre anyway hence that’s where we ended up.
I think I have said this 2 or 3 times on this trip alone, however, the city is home to it’s own tram network, just like all the rest, it depends upon the rolling stock as to whether it is accessible.
We were also lucky enough to be in Helsinki on market day, this not only provides fresh fruit and vegetables but also a wide range of souvenirs, very appealing to my PAs, not so much me with a million seagulls swooping up and down!
Tomorrow is yet another day at sea (think we all need a break after 5 consecutive days of visiting new places!) before we dock at our final port of call, Gdynia in Poland (well it’s only supposed to be the porting city for Gdansk, however, attempting to source a wheelchair accessible taxi company who speak English is impossible, Gdynia looks nice though!) on Wednesday 🙂