Lidl Vegas

Day 67 - July 30th

With the rough weather the night before we woke to a fairly damp and battered Hanko, although the good news was the weather had now passed us over. 

Hanko is more of a beachside holiday destination in Finland so there wasn’t too much to see in town itself. With this in mind, we decided to have breakfast and then take a run along the beach and nearby parkland. 

It was a fairly quick run and we cooled off by heading out into the sea for a quick dip in the chilly Finnish ocean. 

With most of the western coastal sights ticked off (and there’s not that many), we started our final journey towards Helsinki. 

As we were only about 100km away from the city centre it was a fairly quick drive in after filling up with water, diesel and supplies for lunch. It would have been a quicker journey if I hadn’t left the water filler cap on top of the pump and didn’t have to drive back another 15 minutes to get it!

We arrived into Helsinki at about 3pm in the afternoon and headed towards a wild camp spot that had been highlighted on the Internet. It turned out to be a pretty good recommendation as we were on the coast again and even had a stretch of beach that we could relax on. A beach in Helsinki, who would have thought?

Our beachside wild camping spot - Helsinki.

As Helsinki doesn’t have a huge amount of attractions we took the rest of the day fairly easy and rode our bikes into town to find a supermarket to purchase supplies for dinner. This turned into a bit of a mission as we tried to find a supermarket that sold pizza bases that didn't cost an arm and a leg.

One of the strange things we had noticed about Finland in the short period of time we had been there was the concentration of slot/poker machines in supermarkets and petrol stations. It was quite strange to walk into a supermarket to see a whole bank of poker machines lining the entry and often with 3 or 4 people playing them at different times of the day. This was something we had seen in Las Vegas, but not expected to see in Finland.

Claire having a quick flutter before doing the grocery shop at Lidl.

Day 68 - July 31st

With the sun shining again, we decided to visit the island of Suomenlinna which is about 15 minutes boat ride from the southern Helsinki docks and market area. 

Riding through the Helsinki gardens towards the port.

The island was actually set up as a fort by the Swedish in 1748 to protect the city and port (then under Swedish rule) from the Russians. Not surprisingly, the island was listed on the UNESCO world heritage list and was also regarded as Helsinki’s number one attraction so we had to go and take a look at it. 

Although marketed as a heritage site and museum, Suomenlinna is still an active community with approximately 900 people living and working on the island and this was evident by a large number of residential buildings, cafes and a supermarket. 

Museum on Suomenlinna.

Suomenlinna fortress walls.

Despite it’s UNESCO listing, the walk around the island was fairly uneventful with very little to do or see on the island. The most interesting part was an old world war two submarine (Vessiko) that had been docked there and open for tourists to view. With the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty in 1947, Finland was forbidden from having submarines and forced to scrape all existing machines with the exception of Vesikko.

Vesikko Submarine. 

An old bomb - the Finnish probably shouldn't
leave these lying around as kids will draw faces on them.

The rolling hills on Suomenlinna, which are actually
bunkers as part of the main fortress.

Following our return back to the mainland, we took a quick walk around the southern dock markets. Stalls were setup selling home cooked Finnish food, coffee (a Finnish staple), fruit and vegetables and also souvenirs, which included reindeer antlers shaped into knives and also reindeer coats and hats that you could wear if that's what you were into. 

The southern dock markets where you can get yourself one of the
latest things in fashion - a Reindeer coat.

Church we passed on the way to Kallio for a pint.

Our final stop for the day in Helsinki was an area called Kallio, which was noted as a ‘working class area, with working class prices’. Our main objective here was to have a beer in one of the many pubs, as we had not had a drink out of a proper pint glass (or any glass) for quite some time.

Riding along the street we were met with a number of venues with drinkers seated outside along the pavement enjoying the sunshine. Most of them had no spare seats and to be honest the look of some of the drinkers (Bikies and Goths) didn’t make too many places that inviting. 

With us fast approaching the end of the street, we stopped into the last pub on the corner and wandered in to find the place with similar clientele but some cheap, cheap prices (about 2 Euros a pint, which was good compared to Norway & Sweden's $7-10 Euros) so sat down for a drink, before heading home to pack our bags for Russia!