A few days in Helsinki and southern Finland

Our grand return to the European Union, and the last leg of our Baltic adventure, began with a few days off from city life. I'd hoped to go further north, but the transport fees and schedules weren't in our favor, and honestly, it probably wasn't the right time of year. I'd wanted to visit the Sami people, the European Union's only indigenous people, who inhabit the Arctic Circle across Russia, Finland, Sweden, and Norway. They happily receive tourists interested in learning more about (and financially supporting) the Sami. I'd also have loved to see the Northern Lights, one of northern Finland's major draws, but they aren't generally visible after early-to-mid March. I reluctantly acknowledged that some bucket list items can afford to go unchecked.

We stayed in a home in the outskirts of the Helsinki metropolitan area alongside a lake, complete with rowboat that we took out for a spin. Literally. To be generous, we were both a bit rusty on our rowboat skills, so some spinning definitely happened. I am proud to report, however, that nobody tipped the boat, which counts as a win in my book.

Our Airbnb home on a lake came complete with our own private rowboat.

The next morning we got ourselves out to the Nuuksio National Park, probably the best nature escape near Helsinki. The birch tree forests shaded us from a surprisingly sunny day as we hiked past lakes and rugged, untouched terrain. The scenery could not provide a starker contrast from where we'd just been two days prior, and it provided a welcome balance to the trip.

Nuuksio National Park, the best nature escape in Southern Finland

After a couple of days nearly off the grid, we headed back to the world's second-most northern capital city. The prices immediately reflected that we were back in a Nordic country, where we were no longer equipped for the fancy wining (beering?) or dining of Talinn or Saint Petersburg. But Helsinki still had plenty to entertain while holding tight our purse strings.

We visited fancy churches, from the spartan Lutheran Tuomiokirkko just north of Senate Square to the Russian Orthodox Uspenski Cathedral to my personal favorite, the late-1960s Rock Church, or Temppeliaukio kirkko, whose own unique take on Nordic modesty is expressed in its guise of a giant pile of rocks.

Notable churches of Helsinki. Leftmost images: Lutheran cathedral Tuomiokirkko. Top right: Russian Orthodox Uspenski Cathedral. Bottom middle and right: Late 1960s Rock Church, a semi-underground church which appears, from the outside, like a giant pile of rocks.

We spent our time wandering along the waterfront, down the tree-lined boulevard called Esplanadi, and across the city admiring the sights.

Highlights of Helsinki.
Top row: Nicolas and me in front of the Sibelius Monument; Rauhanpatsas, or Statue of Peace, a monument to the friendship between the Finns and the Soviet Union, erected in 1968; the Three Smiths Statue, unveiled in 1932.
Middle left: the Helsinki waterfront.
Bottom row: A sideview on the Presidential Palace; a memorial on Esplanadi to Zacharias Topelius, a Swedish-speaking Finnish journalist and historian; a small German church; monument on Esplanadi to Johan Ludvig Runeberg, a Finnish-Swedish poet; the Kallion Kirkko, a church built in the Art Nouveau style that can be spotted all around Helsinki

While wandering along Esplanadi, we stumbled upon the existence of techno-opera. Who knew?

I even found some impressive consignment shop offerings—thank you, Recci!

Remarkably enough, through the wonders of Facebook, I had the chance to catch up with a friend I'd made while backpacking through Southeast Asia last year. We didn't just enjoy good company out in the town, but also back in our Airbnb home, where we had the pleasure of staying with a worldly musician and her gracious hostess of a cat.

Our feline Airbnb hostess in Helsinki graciously allowed us to share her bed, if we asked nicely.

Finally, on our very last night, we allowed ourselves a bit of Finnish culinary exploration at Juttutupa, a restaurant and bar that was once supposedly a favorite of Lenin. A table in the corner where Lenin and Otto-Ville Kuusinen supposedly liked to meet up is known today as the "Revolutionary table," at least according to the restaurant menus, though we couldn't figure out which corner table they meant. I sampled the fried vendace fish with mashed potatoes and lingonberries. Not bad at all, though Tallinn still topped the list for food on this Baltic trip.

Traditional Finnish food at Juttutupa, supposedly one of Lenin's favorite hang-outs.

The skies finally opened up on the morning of our departure, but we could hardly complain after Mother Nature had spent the past week and a half smiling down on us. It was time to head home.

Russia's "Window to the West"

St. Petersburg was our Paris of the East, or the Russian "window to the West," as the city's founder, Peter the Great, once called it.

Despite taking ages to pass a border guard who made it clear that Americans were not particularly welcome, I immediately felt at home in the city.

Made it to Russia! Complete with my new Cyrillic name and fresh passport stamp.

As displaced Parisians, Nicolas and I were immediately struck with a sense of familiarity thanks to Saint Petersburg's wide boulevards, the ornate bridges criss-crossing the Neva River and canals, the grandiose architecture, and the international flare.

Unfortunately, due to the boat schedules and our 72-hour time restrictions, we had to book our departure trip for the following evening, allowing us just 36 hours to see a city that could easily take a week or two. This meant we had to rapidly switch from our leisurely Tallinn pace to power tourist mode.

We were happy to take advantage of the weak ruble, but still felt a bit of a price jump compared to Tallinn, where we could dine and drink like royalty. Still, we didn't feel too pinched as we sat down for meals. Being in Russia's second largest city, it was no trouble to find a place specializing in Russian and Ukrainian dumplings, which we promptly did.

Traditional Russian food. Left: Pelmeni, meat-filled dumplings. Right: Varenyky, curd-filled dumplings with cherry sauce and sour cream. A food he happily associates with his late Ukrainian great-grandmother, Nicolas insists I note that varenyky are traditionally Ukrainian.

Our stomachs happily full, we spent our afternoon running around town trying to check off as many major monuments from the tourist list as possible. The pace of life here felt fast, busy, energetic. Everything was so big, so colorful (notably a trait not shared with Paris), so beautiful. My personal favorite was the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. It seemed to have come to life straight out of the Candy Land board game we used to play as kids. Trying to see all of Saint Petersburg in just two days was unfair to this city. A photo collage might do a good job of capturing the whirlwind of sightseeing.

Saint Petersburg in 36 hours.
Left column, top-down: St. Isaac's Cathedral; the view down the Fontanka River from Anichkov Bridge; the Winter Palace by night.
Second column, top-down: the Smolny Cathedral convent; Dvortsovyy Bridge by night; Feodorovskoy Sobor.
Third column, top-down: me outside the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood; red carnations, the most common flower to place at Russian soldiers' graves, around an eternal flame monument. Flowers were there to mark the May 9 anniversary of the end of Soviet involvement in WWII; the Admiralty.
Right-most column, top-down: Nicolas outside the Peter and Paul Fortress; the inner courtyard of the Winter Palace (Hermitage Museum)

For once, the following morning, the weather wasn't entirely in our favor. Under heavy skies, we toured the Peter and Paul Fortress and then headed for the Winter Palace, once the official residence of the czars (pre-1917 revolution), now home to the Hermitage Museum, one of the oldest and largest museums in the world. I'm not sure exactly how it compares in size to the Louvre, but it certainly gives the Parisian gem a run for its money.

Views from inside the Hermitage Museum

And lest Saint Petersburg look merely like a sparkling monument of the past, here's just one glimpse at how modern and trendy it is, with store fronts à la New York/ London/ Paris.

I couldn't help smiling at these store front windows along Nevsky Prospekt, a major boulevard in Saint Petersburg.

And in honor of Nicolas, I'll wrap this post up with an image of just one of the many Western chains that made it to the Motherland, complete with Cyrillic sign post.

Burger King, now in Cyrillic. (For the life of me, why a Frenchman would find *this* cuisine enticing...)

Before we knew it, we were rolling our suitcases down the sidewalks, doing our best to avoid the major puddles, and wheeling back up the boarding ramps past customs and back toward the European Union. By now, I'm convinced that getting that Russian tourist visa will be worth it, one day.

A small, modern, medieval town: Tallinn

The first words I find to describe Tallinn are small medieval town. I just loved the medieval town walls and the old town hall, complete with dragon gutter spouts. Of course, this is a modern (albeit little) European capital city, so there's much more than just that.

Old Town Tallinn. Top row: St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church seated atop Toompea hill; The view down Rataskaevu, home to plenty of fine restaurants that we enjoyed during our stay; A typical street in the Old Town; Tallinn's Viru Gates, which date back to the 14th century and were once part of a larger defensive complex. Middle left row: A typical street (technically outside the Old Town) bearing the Estonian flag; A medieval city gate. Bottom row: Part of the old city walls; Looking down the street toward the 14th century Gothic St. Olav's Church; Tallinn's town hall, reputed to be the best preserved Gothic town hall in Northern Europe; Climbing up to Kiek in de Kök, a 15th century tower.

Tallinn offered surprisingly good food and a great craft beer scene. Mostly, we came across high quality European cuisine, not too much in the way of Estonia-specific beyond some fantastic dark breads. We even found a fantastic Italian gelateria run by real Italians charging at least three times what they could in Italy. (Whoever said that EU didn't do any good?)

Dining in Tallinn. Left column: Estonian dark breads and soups. Middle columns: an assortment of main dishes we enjoyed over the past few days. Right column: desserts!

Enjoying the craft beer scene in Tallinn

Great wifi was available in just about every shop, restaurant, or café. The prices in Tallinn were cheap, though not Vilnius-level cheap, but uou definitely didn't have the feeling that you were among a downtrodden people struggling to find their footing in the 21st century. And you shouldn't. This is a high-tech European country. Did you know that Skype was once a small Estonian start-up? And things haven't stopped there. In late 2014, Estonia became the first country in the world to offer electronic residency, in a step towards "a country without borders," enabling people around the world (who are willing to shell out cash) to obtain access to Estonia's digital services and to gain the rights to open a company or a bank account in Estonia. This is a high-tech little country.

Views across Tallinn, capital of one high-tech little country. (Nicolas does not love the camera, unlike a certain seagull.)

Fun fact: Did you know that Estonia was actually run by the Danes from the 13th-14th century and again in the 16th-17th century? For such a small country today, Denmark certainly has left a large footprint. In fact, traces of it can be found in the Danish king's garden, right on Toompea Hill nearby the castle. Legend has it that today's Danish flag fell from the sky and into existence right here back in 1219, turning the battle for Tallinn in favor of Danish king Valdemar II and winning over the hearts of Danes, who take great pride in their Dannebrog (the Danish flag) today.

The Danish King's Garden, legendary birthplace of the Danish flag, overlooked by an eery sculpture of a faceless monk

It wasn't just the Danes getting in on the business of running Estonia for the Estonians. During much of the 20th century, Estonia was part of the USSR. However, unlike Lithuania, our first former Soviet state to have visited, Estonia is much more integrally tied with Russia. Unlike in Lithuania, where the Russians seemed to be viewed as an external former occupying force, many Estonians actually identify as culturally Russian, even learning to speak Russian before Estonian. Our Airbnb host here in Tallinn told us that she considers herself an exception as an Estonian who is just plain Estonian as far back as she can trace her ancestry. Most of her friends have some Russian/former USSR ancestry. As she explained, that's due much in part to the Soviet Union's efforts to create a "Soviet race" by relocating many young people to different parts of the USSR, where they often ended up meeting people, falling in love, and starting families far away from their roots.

This may help explain why the Estonian Museum of Occupations was much less overwhelming than its Lithuanian counterpart. However, it was home to some impressively discreet KGB spy technology and other interesting tidbits. For instance, we learned about the underground punk music movement of the 1970's, which the Soviets tried hard to suppress. In Estonia, a small magnet required to amplify a guitar could only be found within the public pay phones. It was no coincidence then that, at the height of the '70s punk movement, many repairmen found themselves fixing pay phones, and replacing these magnets, several times a day.

Museum of Occupations. Left: Anti-Nazi Soviet paraphernalia from the early 1940's. Right: a display of an old public payphone, the likes of which had to be repaired 2-3 times a day at the height of the punk music movement, when young Estonians secretly stole phone parts to make their own electric guitars.

In an earlier, less oppressive period of Russian rule, Kadriorg Palace and Park were created, beginning in the early 1700s under the order of the Russian czar Peter the Great. We took a half day to stroll the 2 km outside the city to enjoy the grounds and admire the palace.

Kadriorg Park and Palace

Overall, the city was a charming little place, though we might have done better to plan a day-excursion outside of the city as we had 4 ½ days to fill, more than enough to properly see the city. Instead, we took the opportunity to relax, do a bit of work each morning, and enjoy tourism at a pace to which I'm certainly not accustomed. I'd gladly give Tallinn my thumbs up.

And, with Estonia added to my list of foreign countries visited (#37 and counting!), we boarded our Saint Peter line ferry, Russia-bound.

Farewell, Tallinn!