After concluding our 48 hours in St. Petersburg, we continued our whirlwind tour of the Baltics with a stop in Helsinki, Finland. Here, we looked forward to yet another excellent public transportation system, and hopped on a bus right outside the cruise port using tickets bought via the HSL app on our phone.
Our first stop in Helsinki was the adorable Cafe Regatta, a quaint waterfront coffee shop near the famous Sebellius sculpture. And given that proximity, the key to Cafe Regatta is to get there before any of the massive tour groups wander over from the statue. We enjoyed a cinnamon roll and coffee for nearly an hour before the tour groups started to invade, meaning it was time for us to head out on our way.
From here, we began an inspection of Helsinki’s top religious sites, which also happen to be some of Helsinki’s best architectural sites, starting with the Temppeliaukio Church, or church in the rock. Unfortunately, our leisurely breakfast meant that we hadn’t missed the tour groups at this stop, and the church was pretty mobbed, preventing many good photos. (Overall, I’d call this a very skippable stop.)
After this, we saw the Helsinki Cathedral, a Lutheran church, which was in stark contrast to the onion domes of the Eastern Orthodox churches we had seen the previous day in St. Petersburg.
Even the Orthodox church, just down the street from the Helsinki Cathedral, seemed much more tame than its Russian cousins.
After our church stops, we headed to the main market square in Helsinki where hundreds of merchants were selling their wares — everything from food to clothes to souvenirs to art.
Finally, having worked up quite an appetite looking at all the tasty food, we headed to a more upscale option for our lunch — a caviar and oyster tasting at Finlandia Caviar.
We spent a little more time walking around the downtown area, before eventually heading back to our ship for an early afternoon departure. Our next stop (and final port day) took us to the breathtaking Stockholm, Sweden.
And man — was Sweden amazing. The sites were beautiful. The people were beautiful (and also very friendly.) The weather was perfect. In short, we loved every second of it.
Our ship had actually docked at the Nynäshamn cruise port, so we first had to take bus into the city center, which dropped us off next to the Kungliga Operan, or Royal Opera House.
A quick walk among the morning commuters (largely on bicycles) and we arrived at the Stockholm City Hall. Now, normally, I wouldn’t take time out of a vacation to go tour a measly government building. But the Stockholm City Hall is magical — it’s the location of the Nobel Prize award banquet and every inch of it was thoughtfully crafted. You can see my favorite room, the gold room, at the top of this post.
After our private tour, we hopped in an Uber to head over to the Vasa Museum. The Vasa is a fully recovered and restored Swedish war ship, with quite an interesting history. It sank on its maiden voyage, weighed down by all the intricate carvings and poor design. But the cold waters around Sweden preserved the shipwreck, and it was recovered and moved to the museum in the 1970s.
Next, we strolled through the nearby Skansen open air amusement park area until we reached our lunch destination, Skanska Gruven, a bakery and organic cafe overlooking the water.
Our final activity in Stockholm took us slightly out of the city center, to a non-descript strip mall. There we found Boulebar, one of 8 locations in the city, where young Swedes go to play the French sport of Petanque — one of the hottest nightlife activities in Sweden these days.
We had booked a private lesson with an actual professional petanque player, who also served as our bartender. We learned the rules of the game and got some tips on our throwing form while sipping cocktails and listening to 80s music; it was pretty awesome.
And with that, sadly, we bid these two jewels of the Baltic adieu. We had one more sea day left on the ship before our eventual return to Copenhagen. More to come!
