Ah the excitement of travel through Eastern Europe. Our original plan was to take a train from Prague to Tallinn, Estonia… until we found that there really aren’t any trains that run through the Baltics. At least not with any regularity and not conveniently connected.
The next option was to take a bus, but under the best of circumstances it’s more than a 24 hour bus ride and that just wasn’t too tempting.
Flying is always a possibility, but such a dull one.
Which is why we’ll be taking a train from Prague to Rostock, Germany and then catching a ferry from Rostock to Helsinki, Finland. It’s a 24-hour ferry ride, but we have sleeping quarters, so we’re all set. We get into Helsinki at 8 in the morning, and it’s only a 2 hour ferry ride from there to Tallinn, so we decided to give ourselves am 8-hour stopover in Helsinki – because how often does one unexpectedly find themselves in Finland?
So, anyone have any knowledge of Helsinki? It will be a Sunday morning/afternoon that we stay there – the 22nd of November to be exact. We’re expecting to just wander around the downtown and see what there is to see, but if anyone has any hot tips (other than “bundle up”) we’d love to hear them.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I can’t tell if this is a weekday or seasonal outdoor market in Helsinki, but it sounds low-key and not like the “bizarre” (you meant bazaar, i judge your slip in spelling) you worry about losing your netbook in.
http://www.wherescool.com/spots/kauppatorimarket-square-helsinki/
The site also mentions the town of Porvoo, 45 minutes out, but it doesn’t sound like you’ll have the transportation to see it.
ALSO you need to record a video of you humming a little of ‘Finland’ for me and Ty.
ALSO hopefully you will run into someone like this snowflake: http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/2009/01/riitta_ikonen.php
Bri,
First off, thanks to “edit” button, that little typo never happened. Also, in retrospect it clearly should have been “bazaar in Calcutta” so I could include the Tenenbaums reference.
Second, you can be sure that I will be doing more than humming a few bars of Finland – probably for most of the ferry ride, and the entire time we’re wandering around.