Helsinki

I woke about 6 am. It looked to be getting light about 3 am. We had breakfast in the hotel and then headed out walking. The temperature was about 8 degrees but a beautiful blue sky morning. After exploring the beautiful park over the road from the hotel we carried on down to the local port area passing the university, the cathedral and checking out the market area. After an outstanding coffee from a guy operating from a rickshaw type set up we walked around the marina area and up to the cathedral which is an unusual red brick construction with Russian style domes. It turned out to be the Russian Orthodox Church. Helsinki has an interesting mix of old character heritage buildings mixed with some really interesting modern architecture.
We then summoned up the courage to take a ride on the Helsinki Skywheel. We have talked about doing this since we saw the London Eye last year and as it was such a nice day we took the plunge. The view from the top was amazing although I don't think that Gaye took inn too much of it. There was a public sauna next door and we could see the people coming out to plunge into the sea after their sauna. Bugger that!
After 3 laps on the wheel we then returned to the ground for a beer/wine to steady our nerves and wandered back to the hotel for a bit of a rest in anticipation of meeting up with our tour party for dinner.
We met up with the remaining members of our tour for a drink before dinner after they had been delayed getting through the airport following their flight from Doha. At dinner we sat next to Geoff & Karen from Rangiora and came to the realisation that Geoff had a few behaviour issues. It transpired that he was on the autism spectrum. We weren't offended when he disappeared when dessert was served and quickly moved on to making friends with Brian who is the husband of our tour guide Linzi and the rest of the group who had got to know each other in Doha.Leggi altro