Baltics24: Day 3: Aland – Helsinki

Spent most of the morning’s ferry cruise dealing with Optus help trying to get reconnected. At various times I was connected to Swedish, Finnish, and Estonian telcos but at no point would any data flow. In the end Optus have cut my 5G access at account level, which seemed to work (I say seemed as I wouldn’t be surprised if it drops out tomorrow, as I had most of Saturday without issue without having to change any settings).

We’d booked the premium breakfast, so I went for the viking breakfast option, which seemed like the closest thing they had to a big breakfast. While tasty, it was a little on the small side, which meant I then ate too much at the cold tables: various smoked meats, pickled and cured fish, and something totally new to me, Karellian pies. These wonderful things are a rye crust filled with rice porridge, crinkled on the edges and baked until they are delicious. They are served with egg butter, butter whipped until light with extra boiled egg white added.

Getting off the ship was a little easier than boarding, the lifts work hard but seem to be small and run to a random pattern. Also disembarking were many Finns with trolleys full of beer cartons, as well as a number of people wearing lanyards for “Helsinki Special Convention 2024”.

There seems to be some sort of international travel conspiracy that ensures that travellers almost always arrive in new cities early in the morning, yet can never check into hotels until 2 or 3pm. Almost every time, The hotels of the world spend half the day trying to store luggage for people who can’t check in, while cities are then filled with aimless wanderers just looking to shower and change and unpack. It’s just crazy. Based on my highly speculative non-peer reviewed research, there are more flights landing and boats docking between 6am-12pm than at any other time of the day.

Arriving at out hotel around 11am, we dropped our luggage and went for a wander. We’re staying close to the docks, not far from the old town, so it was a fairly gentle stroll into downtown Helsinki. There are some markets on the wharf, both outside and inside. Strolling through the inside market all of Finland’s traditional delicacies were on offer: reindeer, elk, bear, fish roe/caviar, large slabs of cured salmon, the works. Were I not still full from breakfast I’d have tried the lot. We paused at the Esplanade to just relax, before checking out the downstairs food market at Stockmann department store. There were many delicacies here too, beautiful looking breads and pastries, all the good things.

We found a bookshop that had a large selection of English books, though even more Finnish. We stopped by a games shop, wandered past the huge cathedral and Senate Square, before heading back to our hotel. Able to check in, we rested up before heading out to Ravintola Teerenpeli, a bar owned by the Teerenpeli brewing/distilling group, to try some local brews, including a very good organic lager and an unfiltered wheat beer just loaded with creaminess, esters, and all the good things. For food I went for the burger, and it was good. Decent flavour, a bit of melty cheese goodness, and some pickles to top it off. A good meal.

Tomorrow is more Helsinki exploring, there are a few places on my list to check out, more beer to try, food to eat, cobble stones to try not to try over.