Day Sixty Two Monday 19th September

We took the direct route to Helsinki, including motorways, but it felt like a long journey. Not difficult, though, and the roads were pretty empty until we got to the Helsinki ring road, which took us all round the city as Rastila Camping is on the east side. This is a proper all year round site serving the city, and has a lot going for it. Although urban - there are a lot of blocks of flats around - it is very green, and all the individual bays have shoulder high hedges around them. Although not full, there are plenty of Motorhomes and caravans here. It is also close to the river, although we haven't found that or the "beach" yet. Or the wifi, for that matter, but we had been warned on Tripadvisor that the wifi was underwhelming.

No matter. The best thing is that the shower block is actually heated! And the Metro station is just round the corner. Twenty minutes, and we were right in the City Centre, with just time to get to the Tourist Information Centre before it closed at 4. Our mission - to find out about the visa-free overnight cruises to St Petersburg. We are duly booked for next week. Really, we had to give it a try. St Peter Line offer an overnight cruise with cabin there, a day in the City with a ticket for a shuttle bus that you can get on and off, and cruise and cabin overnight back. Total for the two of us 164 Euros. Given that a ninety minute bus tour of Helsinki would have cost 54 Euros, it sounds like good value, even if it is pretty basic. All the security bits and warnings do sound a little scary, though. We shall see.

We then spent a couple of hours around the harbour, market place and Senate Square, with the imposing Lutheran Cathedral mounted high above and overlooking it. It had lovely clean lines, inside and out. Very unfussy, especially inside, and all bright white outside.
The old Market Hall, a covered market, was also interesting, with its fixed wooden stalls now housing a fantastic array of very modern delicatessen counters. A lot of them were fish, but Geoff noted some rather exotic sounding meats.

We hopped back on the Metro and were back "home" in no time. We are just booked in here for one night, but plan to return next week and make this our base for the last few days before we get the ferry back to Germany. It has been good to have the opportunity to suss it out, and a bonus to discover that the ferry port we need to get to on our last day is only 10 minutes away!