Helsinki (Part 2)

The next 2 days were rainy and even snowy! It got a lot colder as well so we spent our time just walking around the pretty harbour, visiting the market square, and shopping. On Saturday it was All Saints’ day in Finland where they pay respect to people who passed away. We think initially this started with honouring soldiers who died in a war with Russia or WWII but has grown to be about anyone who has died, especially within the past year. Everyone goes to the cemetery and lights candles at graves so we paid a visit at sunset and it was so pretty seeing everything lit up and candles and people everywhere. We then went bar hopping to end our night. We have tried traditional Finnish meat pie called Lihapiirakka. It’s a sweet deep fried dough with mince filling that tastes like normal meat pie flavour. It was amazing and we kept trying to find more for the last few days but everywhere kept closing or didn’t have it. Iesha said it is like a Finnish version of the South African vetkoek which has curry inside of the fried bread instead.

On our last night we had our first Finnish sauna experience at a place called Löyly. We had 2 hours where you have to shower and wash your hair before and then go and use the saunas. There were 3 saunas we could use which were all quite dark. We would have liked to have gone in the day to look at the ocean view but it was fully booked. We did a couple of dips in the 8 degree Baltic ocean as well which was very refreshing. We left feeling so refreshed and happy and definitely want to sauna at home (maybe just in winter though). We both have said we could see ourselves living in Helsinki and have enjoyed the city so much!Read more