Helsinki

Vappu - The best possible weekend to visit

By Michael Wilson

May 5^th, 2016

VAPPU!

As our plane landed in Helsinki the flight attendant told us to have a great Vappu and to enjoy the party. Not knowing what she was talking about we made our way to our Airbnb. Our hosts told us this weekend is a huge party weekend in Helsinki and we started to get excited!

We headed to the city centre and were greeted by swathes of people partying in the streets. Basically, students where boiler suits in their house colours and previous graduates, of all ages, wear some kind of sailor hat and they all come together to drink champagne. There’s also a ritual of putting massive sailor hats on every statue in the city. We didn’t really know what was going on but we didn’t care, the atmosphere was electric!

Time to explore

The next morning everyone gets back in the same gear and heads to the park for a massive picnic. Nursing a hangover, we joined them and stuffed ourselves with food. After the picnic, we thought we should probably explore the city and see what it looked like.

The architecture in the city is great, everything seems well designed and thought out. Helsinki isn’t a very tall city, there isn’t a skyscraper to be seen. The tallest building being Helsinki Cathedral, which is atop a huge flight of stairs.

The Olympic stadium is being re-developed until 2019, so sadly we couldn’t go in but we did go for a visit anyway. The most extraordinary building is certainly the Rock Church. From the outside, it looks like rubble but when you get inside it’s a beautiful church surrounded in rock with a huge copper ceiling. It was like nothing I’d seen before.

Suomenlinna

Now it was time to get on a boat (I’M ON A BOAT!) to the world heritage site of Suomenlinna. It’s basically a huge fort, built by the Swedish in 1748, on a set of small islands to defend the city. There’s loads to see on the island and it was such a beautiful day everything looked glorious.

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The sun sets on Helsinki

When we booked Helsinki, we expected it to be cold and possibly grey. However, there was hardly a cloud in the sky the whole time we were there and I didn’t take my coat out of the flat at all.

The amazing weather meant we saw some really colourful sunsets, which gave the city a whole new look.

I’ve visited four of the five Nordic countries now (still have to see Iceland) and have loved them all! Helsinki is a great city to visit. There’s beauty everywhere (people and scenery), everything is designed really well, it’s easy to get around, the food choice is brilliant and it has a great nightlife. Put it on your list.