Europe Trip Part 3: Getting to Know You, Getting to Know All about You

Helsinki, Finland

Sunday, June 6

After traveling for six days and covering thousands of miles by plane, train, bus, tram, subway, boat, and foot, I had finally arrived in Helsinki, readily anticipating six days of comparable normalcy. I mean, I was set to attend a "summer school," and school's what I've been doing for the last 18 years.

But first I had nearly the entirety of a glorious afternoon - 67 degrees F and partially cloudy - to wander around and get a good sense of the layout of the city. I hiked - naturally - on over to my hostel first, stopping by the downtown bus station to orient myself to the local tram and bus system that I'd be using all week to get to the university. I was surprised to find that all the electronic ticket machines only took credit cards with those electronic chips, not the magnetic swipey kind we have in the US. It turns out that this occurrence was to be common with self-checkouts in Finland, so I was forced to go back to the exchange bureau and take out another €50 just so that I could buy the 6-day transit pass I needed.


Eventually, I got to my hotel, the Hostel Satakuntatalo (sat-uh-koon-ta [pause] ta-low). The place had just opened for the season on June 1; apparently for the rest of the year it houses students from the local province who attend Helsinki City University, a 40,000 student college. Apparently the Helsinki University's student union is tremendously wealthy, as they own the land and the buildings in a large swath of downtown - including my hotel - owing to the fact that the city center up and moved to a new downtown location several hundred years ago... which just so happened to be where the student union had been given a substantial land grant to build housing just a few decades before.


So the building was decently nice, for a hostel. I had a private room with a bed, drawers, and a desk. I even got a balcony, although my initial excitement was tempered by an active construction site - interesting to look at, but occasionally noisy - about a block away. There was a bathroom next door, a shower around the corner, and even a laundry room and a sauna downstairs. However, perhaps most importantly, the hostel had a decent dining room with an included breakfast buffet, linen service, and a complimentary sauna. I settled in, planned out a walking route, and set off once more to see just what all there was to see.

I first headed north, along an old railway easement, to the Temppeliaukio Kirkko ("Rock Church"). This church, the first of several that I saw that day, is built in such a way as to take advantage of Finland's intriguing geological characteristics. You see, in most of the southern section of the country, bedrock is not very far below the surface. In fact, numerous parks in the city center have these gradually sloped rock outcroppings sticking up through the topsoil, and apparently the whole region (even downtown) used to be like this. Even at the airport, I remember seeing that the runways pass through cuts in the rock, that's how pervasive it is. The whole of downtown actually had to be blasted out in order to provide a good building surface, and this church took unique advantage of one such outcropping, actually carving out a space for the sanctuary inside a large block of solid rock. The effect, I think you'll agree, is quite majestic.


From there, I continued north, arriving at the National Parliament building around 1pm. Luckily for me, it just so happens that on the first Sunday of the month, they offer free tours in English at noon and 1:30pm, so I lucked out and got to see the building's cool architecture as well as the spectacular parliament hall.

Entry corridor to the parliament hall. They say this entire hallway was designed so that the view out the end would look like a stained glass window.

From there, I continued north around Töölönlahti Bay, past Finlandia Hall, a building designed by Alvar Aalto, a man widely regarded as perhaps Finland's most famous architect. I certainly hope that his buildings are more impressive on the inside, because so far I'm not that struck by the exteriors.

A funky conducting sculpture

Finally, I reached the 1952 Olympic Stadium. Apparently they even have a hostel here underneath the stands. However, my visit was to see the Olympic Tower, which apparently has the best views of the city. However, all the buildings were quite far away, plus they wouldn't even let you take the stairs to the top, so I resolved to stroll on over to downtown myself.



So I continued around Töölönlahti, a tidal basin connected to the sea through a series of other bays, on past a quaint series of historic wooden summer homes, now apparently available to rent out for parties and whatnot. From this side of the bay, I also got quite a nice view of the opera house and Finlandia Hall before passing the railyard for the central train station and entering downtown.


Large portions of downtown Helsinki are quite new, having been hit hard by both the Russians and the Germans during the war. However, a good deal of old buildings exist too, resulting in an interesting mix - from the grand train station (below) to the imposing Iron Hall, another Aalto building with something of a curiously decorated central corridor in that it is a tremendous metal structure with a quaint italian piazza inside.


I continued on down to Senate Square, home to another grand church, the Tuomiokirkko, as well as some more stately university buildings.


I also saw the harbor, including the Upenski Cathedral (the largest orthodox church in northern Europe) as well as the Viking Line terminal for my return journey. Unlike my trip over from Stockholm, there were still direct Helsinki-Stockholm tickets available when I booked so I had no further reason to detour through Turku. Also around the harbor were several more buildings of state, including the town hall and the remarkably unprotected looking Presidential Palace - as well as the Esplanad, the city's "central park" of sorts, before returning across the center of town to my hostel.

Upenski Cathedral
More Aalto architecture
Presidential Palace. In between me and the road in front of the palace is a small waterway with signs reading "2 hour parking", apparently for the boats.

City Hall, with both Swedish and Finnish flags
Esplanad
More Aalto

This time, I took some advice from my mother and stopped at a grocery store since I would both be in town for a while and was fortunate enough to have a refrigerator in my room. I picked up a baguette, cheese, and some meat that made a few absolutely satisfying little sandwiches along with fruit, chips, and even Orangina - one of my favorite childhood sodas that I just can't seem to find in the states anymore. I set up my room, took a hot shower, made a few phone calls (using the only land line phone I've seen in the whole of Finland; seriously, they have no pay phones for my calling card), and sat down to nosh and begin reading a new book. Appropriately enough, it's Michael Crichton's Travels, and it is great. All in all, it was a good night, and it was good to get some rest before the conference early in the morning.

Finally, a tour of the room and a review of the local strawberries.