Iso Mustasaari

Habitual holiday morning run around the peninsula - already very warm at 8.30. Laid back breakie & ambled into town to catch the ferry to Suomenlinna Island Fortress - problem was that on a hot Sunday it was possible that half of Helsinki had also decided to seek out somewhere peaceful, a short ferry away from the city - thus not peaceful. Took a chance - hoped for the best that the hoardes would be spread out. Short crossing with some nice views of the city. On docking, we made a point of going the opposite direction to the masses, which happened to be in the direction of the WW1 Prisoner of War memorial ... in theory. Try as we might, it could not be located. Took a shade break to plan & watch one of the many cruise liners depart Helsinki. Slow walk uphill to begin exploring, just as the next ferry came in. Rats. Stopped at a water fountain & amusedly watched as people struggled to fill up bottles - really wasn't as hard as they made it look. Took a shade stop in the church - yet another Ikea looking church. At this point it occured that picnic options would be good - bit late for a supermarket in town but back where the boat docked was a grocery store. We turned left off the boat, if we'd turned right we wouldn't have ended up doing a huge circle but directly in front of the store - ah well. Found a shady spot at the Artilliary Bay Quay, ate & watched the world go by. Considering how many people were here (full ferries every 15 mins) it was remarkably calm - maybe everyone was at the beach. Prior to coming Liz had picked out the one museum that she might end up getting dragged around & she called it - a matter of metres from the lunch spot was one of only a few u-boats open to the public. This was probably one of the first built, as it was a prototype. It was then given to the Finnish. Liz found a shady spot while the true cramped nature of a U-boat became apparent. Yikes.Read more