Trips

Sun., 9/27/15 – Helsinki
        At 10:30 we started our city tour of Helsinki by bus.  It was the same tour that we took from the Holland America ship in 2007 but in reverse order.  The red brick Orthodox Church near our hotel (Uspenski Cathedral) is closed inside for restoration.  We passed by the three icebreakers in the harbor.  They can easily open and sail through six feet of ice but are not very stable in open water.  Finland is trying to reduce their use of coal for heating.  We saw the huge pile of coal at the power plant.  Sixty percent of Finland is forest but most of that is privately owned.  We stopped at Senate Square with the office of the Prime Minister, Helsinki University, and the St. Nicholas Cathedral (it once had a bishop) built in 1852 on the highest piece of land in Helsinki.  It is now a plain Lutheran Church.  It has statues of the Apostles on the roof. The statue of Russian Duke Alexander II of 1863 stands in the square.   More important, below him stands the symbol of Finland – a woman with the sword of defense, shield of protection, and lion of courage.  We looked at the white building with green roof on an island that is the oldest sailing club in the world.
            We passed through streets of three and five story buildings that represent Finnish architecture.  The Red Army destroyed much of Helsinki in 1944 but it was rebuilt.  At present there are no sky-scrappers.  There are not enough citizens to require verticality.  The city has an active shipyard, Arctech, which is currently building an icebreaker for Russia.  Cruise ships are now too large to fit in this yard.
            We stopped at the new Music Center opened in 2012 to use the free toilets.  The concert hall is a unique design.  The seats are at different levels and oriented to the “stage.”  The university of music and the philharmonic are housed in this modernly designed building.  The lobby contains a beautiful, modern, glass chandelier which was casting reflections on the walls as the sun shone in the windows. The red tower that reflects in the outer glass wall is the museum of history.

 

Helsinki Cathedral (Evangelical Lutheran)	Statue of Alexander II in front of the Cathedral
The Musikkitalo - the Helsinki Music Center	The Musikkitalo - the Helsinki Music Center
The Musikkitalo - Kirsi Kaulanen - Gaia Sculpture in the lobby	Shadow of Gaia
Reijo Hukkanen - Laulupuut (sometimes called the Big Pike) Sculpture next to the Music Center	On our way to the Sibelius monument, we drove past the 1952 Olympic Games venue and the statue of Paavo Nurmi, the "Flying Finn" (who won 12 Olympic medals as a middle and long distance runner.         The Sibelius monument is a metal sculpture that looks like organ pipes (but don’t call them that!).  It is not a popular sight for many Finns.  The female sculptor added a mask of Sibelius on the rock wall beside the pipes.  It is still weird.
Sibelius monument	Jean Sibelius
Sibelius monument	Even though the Rock Church is covered with a tent while work is done on the roof, we did the obligatory visit to it along with two bus loads of Asians.  There was no “silent reflection” possible inside.  When the Lutherans needed a new church in a newly populated area in North Helsinki, the two brothers who were the architects decided to carve the church out of the existing rock rather than drill and blast it all away.  The result is very unique with raw rock walls and a copper and glass ceiling.  The acoustics turned out to be wonderful and many concerts (choral and instrumental) are held inside.
Rock Church	Rock Church
Unique Helsinki apartment architecture - protruding window sections (like bay windows)	Unique Helsinki apartment architecture
	Another impossible language
Ice breakers	Orthodox Cathedral of Helsinki (Uspenski Cathedral)

       After our city tour, we ate PB for lunch, relaxed at the hotel, and then went out in search of dinner.  Restaurants are very expensive in the city.  We ended up eating at Burger King, ugh!  Since it is Sunday, many places were closed.  We really did not want to spend about 38 Euros ($42) each for duck, lamb, reindeer meat, or fish and not know how it was prepared.

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