It dawned on me that although I thought I’d finished with my trip to Helsinki back in May (give or take the videos; they’ll be making an appearance in some format or other in 2024!), I actually hadn’t, by a long way. I’ve still got plenty to say and first up is Suomenlinna, a tourist attraction so obvious that I even managed to stumble across in on my first trip in 2008. Actually, I have written about it before but I wanted to talk about it in the context of it being 2023 rather than looking eleven years back in the past, as when that one was written.
I feel like I need to add that I spent two evenings on Suomenlinna, my second and my last. Finnish weather is a bit changeable – when I sailed over on Sunday, the sky was clear and blue but it turned very dark and grey while I was over there, while on Tuesday, it was very blue and remained so. So that’s why the sky seems to change drastically: A) It did but also B) these photos were taken on two different evenings.
Suomenlinna is an archipelago in the Bay of Helsinki and it used to be a fortress. Its name means Finland’s Fortress and its glory days were the days when Sweden and Russia were fighting over the quiet country sandwiched between them. These days these does seem to still be a naval academy there but it’s mostly an open air museum and quiet green space in the city. Possibly my favourite thing about it is that the ferry over from the Market Square is included in your zone A HSL ticket so effectively, it’s free. If you don’t have a travel pass, you can buy a ticket from the machine on the pier. It takes about 15 minutes to sail across and interestingly, although this is primarily a foot ferry, there’s space onboard for a couple of cars. You sail out past Allas Sea Pool and Uspenski Cathedral and as the city shrinks into the distance, you can see the Orthodox Cathedral rising up out of the Baroque buildings along the sea front. Even if you’re not interested in Suomenlinna in itself, it’s worth doing just to see Helsinki’s skyline from the water.
The first time I was there it was November and it was freezing. I had a long wool coat (actual wool? From New Look?) for my school trip to Russia and that seemed perfect and I invested in sheepskin (actual sheepskin? from Primark?) mittens and a pashmina-thing. This time it was late May and it was… well, it was kind of freezing, especially coming back at 10.30pm. Probably fine if you’re content to stay inside in the lounge but I’m just not that kind of person. I will always be out on deck. I had my packable down jacket and that was a godsend but it was May, it was summer, the sun shone all day and all night, and it didn’t cross my mind that full winterwear would be something I’d want for evenings on Suomenlinna.
Helsinki is a capital city and a beautiful one but it doesn’t attract the legions of tourists that London and Paris and Rome do. You can breathe in Helsinki, and the air is chilly. I went over to Suomenlinna on two evenings for two reasons. The first was that I had things I wanted to do during the day which couldn’t be done in the evenings. The second was that this is one of Helsinki’s biggest tourist attractions and I figured it would be quieter in the evenings. Well, it certainly was, but knowing what I saw on the streets of Aleksanterinkatu, I wonder how busy it would get even during the afternoon on a glorious day. If your choice is “sit in the hotel and watch Netflix” or “go to Suomenlinna on the free ferry”, I know what I’d choose. I know what I did choose.
Broadly, Suomenlinna comprises four islands linked by bridges. Two of them are largely the military school and residential – those are the ones over the white wooden bridge if you turn right off the ferry and keep walking straight forwards. They’re good for views across the bay, but if you look at the tourist map, there’s not a single thing marked on those two islands.
The other two are more interesting. There are various museums and exhibitions, some of the wooden buildings have been converted to cafes and bars and there are even craft workshops – very little of this is open past 5pm, by the way. If you’re there for an evening like me, you’re there for peace and quiet and nature. There’s a blue walking route that leads you through most of this and down to the King’s Gate on the south-east corner of the further island but you don’t have to stick to it. Indeed, you’ll miss half the attractions if you do. But if military history isn’t your thing, you can just stroll.
My favourite bit is when you get to the southernmost peninsula of the second island. There’s a narrow inlet with a bit of beach and I sat there on my last evening and sketched it in charcoal. I love sketching in charcoal on sugar paper. It makes me feel like you don’t actually have to be any good at it, which I’m not. It’s just sugar paper. It’s not real or precious paper which must be reserved for High Art. It’s a bit sheltered and if you really want to swim in the Baltic, I believe this is the best spot. Needless to say, I didn’t swim.
Beyond that bit of beach is an area I mentally call Hobbiton. It’s a load of military buildings hidden from the point of view of the sea under turf domes. From the point of view of dry land, it’s like walking among Hobbit holes, just with the occasional cannon shielded by walls from the outside. There’s a cistern down here for the provision of water (a duck pond!) and as ever, there are sea birds just ambling around, wondering what you’re doing here. This place is probably especially quiet during the day, being away from most of the obvious attractions, museums, cafes and so on, but in the evening, you have it to yourself. I found a sheltered spot by a wall and ate a korvapuusti, a Finnish oversized cinnamon bun which I’d been carrying around for at least a day by that point.
Then the cross-Baltic ferry came in. The mouth of Helsinki Bay is littered with islands and the route the ferry uses is to squeeze in to the east of Suomenlinna between it and the neighbouring island. From my point of view, sitting under that wall, I was absolutely convinced the ferry was going to ram the island at high speed. I genuinely pictured myself as the first aider first on the scene of a massive naval incident. At that speed, and the size of the thing, it was going to go straight through the defensive walls , it was going to get ripped open and I’d be there, with no first aid kit and no backup, trying to save lives from an actual shipwreck before the pros made it out from the city.
Of course no such thing happened. If it had, you’d have heard about it by now. From that angle, you can’t see the channel between the two islands but the ferry was merrily steaming through there as it has done for decades. Swoop round the Suomenlinna archipelago and then it’s a straight line into the ferry port. You really don’t realise how big a ferry is until you see it loom over fortress walls only seventy of so metres away, though. At that angle, it really looks like it’s going to run aground.
I strolled back through the islands to the ferry. I’m not stupid; I’d checked the return ferry times before I pranced off. The ferries run well into the night and this is Helsinki in late May. It simply doesn’t get dark here. But it does get cold. It had been chilly at 5pm. By the time I was heading home at 10 or 10.30, I was the only person out on deck, and only then because I was pig-headedly stubborn. I was huddled up in my layers, of which I hadn’t taken nearly enough. Hadn’t brought nearly enough to Finland in the first place. My fingers were numb on my camera but I was determined to make it. Not sorry to get on the nice warm tram back on the mainland, though.
