Letter from Helsinki

Wednesday 1 June: It’s another beautiful day. We slide gently into our berth in Helsinki. Other cruise ships are already tied up. We haven’t booked a tour and are not in a rush. First we take a leisurely breakfast on deck. The choice of food in the buffet restaurant is excellent.

Then downstairs to Deck 3 where we are checked out of the ship by the crew, who slide our ID cards through a reader. The Hop-on Hop-off buses are waiting. We hop on. Upstairs, in the open top bus, the commentary is hard to hear and out of sync.

The bus takes us on a tour of the city. Helsinki is bigger than we expect, home to half a million people plus. We love the leafy parks. Some of the locals have found themselves grassy spots to celebrate the sunshine.

We hop off again and make our way to the modern art gallery. The exhibition is a temporary one, not of Finnish art as we expect, but of African art. Jonesy likes the South African artists best.

A few blocks further we visit a church hewn out of rock. The walls are rough red granite. Only the roof protrudes.

The dome is supported by a ring of curved beams. The interior is truly beautiful. Everwhere, tourists are taking pictures, as we are ourselves. We resent their chatter.

Then back on foot through the city centre to the open air market. Jonesy stops at a stall where a woman is selling one-off items of jewellery and designer table wear, made from titanium, steel and aluminium.

The stall holder is pleased to tell us about her craft. She's not at all pushy. We buy a pendant from her. It’s very unusual and most attractive.

Nearby, the city hall has an exhibition of 1930’s pictures. We are taken by a remarkable work of art - a chain-work of giant, linked fingers.

It sits on top of one mirror and below another, creating an illusion of huge depth. Jones tries to take pictures from several angles.


We decide to walk the two miles back to the ship. All the signs are both in Swedish, which we can make out, and Finnish, which is a mystery to us. The shoreline is edged with parks, rocky beaches and marinas. The marinas sit partly within natural walls of large boulders. This place is simply made for boats.

Around us the people of Helsinki are walking their babes and their dogs, sunbathing on the grass or the sands, talking in a language of which we understand nothing.

We feel very much at ease. We stop for refreshments at a kiosk whose owner speaks excellent English. She was born in the US, she confesses. Jones is anxious that we're heading in the right direction. It's ok. We can see the ship in the distance.

When we get back to the ship I reward myself with two cans of Boddingtons’ ale from the Sports Bar. At 1730 the engines rumble, the side thrusters whirr into action, the water churns beneath us and we head slowly out towards our final port of call, Stockholm.