This was our day to explore Helsinki. But first, breakfast at the hotel buffet. I think Ezra ate six croissants and a pile of bacon. Breakfast of champions.
There was some big gymnastics competition happening and we kept running into roaming teams of gymnasts from all over the world.
Our first stop on our self-guided walking tour was a drug store to get some medicine for Finn, who had a very itchy bite of some sort.
Here are some pictures from our sightseeing.
After a while we stopped at a park to give the boys a little respite.
We made our way to the “Rock Church” (Temppeliaukion Kirkko) which has a copper ceiling and was built into solid rock, making it a pretty unique.
After that we kept going, stopping at a candy store for sustenance, then continuing on with the sightseeing.
We dragged the kids to the Design Museum, which they ended up liking because there were a couple of iPads for them to play Angry Birds on, which is a Finnish-designed game.
I could’ve spent all day in there looking at all of the Finnish products.
I particularly enjoyed this display of Fiskars scissors at the reception desk.
We finally let the children roam free and found another park.
And then we walked along the waterfront to loop back to our hotel.
Bruce made a point of putting his hand in the Baltic Sea.
On the way back Ezra shook hands with the gold man.
Later we went out for pizza (giant pizzas!) and walked back to the hotel in the light rain. A successful day in Helsinki!
As an aside, the Finnish language is confounding and I snapped this picture of my favorite sign.
I think it was just a place to pay for parking from a machine, but I love how many letters there are!