Day 10 Helsinki to home
We have 2 things to do before going to the airport so we gad an early breakfast and checked out. It was very warm today and we saw butterflies and dragonflies.
Firstly we caught the 9.40 ferry to Suomenlinna, also known as the Fortress island. The ferry is part of the Helsinki Transport System so we just needed to buy a ticket from a vending machine at the harbour. It took 15 minutes to get there and there werent many on the boat.
This was a really good place to visit. It is a sea fortress made up of 8 islands. We were able to walk to 4 of them as they are joined by bridges. The fortresses were were first created in 1748 by the Swedish rulers to protect against the Russians but were surrendered to Russia in 1808 and used as a base for the Baltic Fleet in WWI. Finland took the islands back in 1917 when they declared independance. People stilll live there and you cannot walk around the residential areas but can walk around some of the historic buildings. Some buildings are cafes or museums in the summer months.
We left on the 12.20 ferry after about 2 and a half hours of walking the island. The incoming ferry was very busy so we were glad we arrived when there were not too many tourists. As we approached the mainland we passed the open air swimming pool which is part of the public sauna. There were quite a few swimming. I was on the wrong side of the ferry to get a good photo.
The last place on our to do list was a quick visit to the Botanical Gardens having a coffee first of all.. They are free to enter and not very big. They still have quite a few late flowering perennials in bloom and it was a really nice walk around in the warm sunshine. We didnt get time to go into the greenhouses.
At 2pm we retrieved our luggage from the hotel and got the train to the airport for our flight back to Stansted and to a completely different weather system. 😒🌧🌂
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