Home of the Moomins

Whilst in Tallinn we took the opportunity to also visit the city that was originally founded in 1550 by King Gustav of Sweden as a trading post to actually compete with Tallinn. At less than 2 hours away with the boat  a visit to Helsinki was pretty to easy to combine with the Estonian capital. And being the home of the Finn Family Moomintroll, I was pretty excited to visit Finland :-)

Helsinki, or Helsingfors in Swedish, is a pretty compact city and easy to get around, although because it is spread over a number of bays, peninsulas and small islands the street pattern can be a bit confusing.

As the focal point of the city the imposing Lutheren cathedral, perched up on its hill, is a good landmark to navigate by. Other landmarks we visited included the beautiful central railway station, the Olympic Stadium, the Russian Uspenski cathedral and the church in the rock, a church literally dug out of solid rock. And of course a visit to Helsinki would not have been complete without a visit to the Moomin shop :-)

Alli xxx