Finland became my last journey chapter in Scandinavian land, this plan was cancelled many times because the ticket price was quite expensive, until came a good offering from Finnair which is only 50 percent from a normal price, and without think twice I bought the return tickets from Munich to Helsinki. Few weeks later there I was, landed in Vantaa, Finland. In the airport I bought regional daily ticket for region Helsinki, Vantaa and Espoo. Finland is the only Scandinavian country that uses Euro as currency. Don’t get confuse when we found all information always in two languages, since Finland has two official languages Finnish and Swedish.
From Vantaa I went to Helsinki with the train. As I arrived in huge Helsinki main train station I went out directly, in front of the station I was greeted by the street musicians, at the moment cold and dry weather froze my head, so I decided to come back into train station, at least I could read my trip plan comfortably. My first destination that day was Finnish national museum, usually it costs around 10 € for entry ticket but lucky I was there on Friday afternoon, and the entry is free every Friday between 16.00-18.00.
In that day I also met one of my Indonesian friend, that even though quite busy still showed his kindness by bringing me to my renting apartement.
The next day early morning I headed to Turku, it’s about 170km from Helsinki. At the past this city was the capital city of Finland before taken over by Helsinki. Unfortunately the open air museum, one of my main target in Turku opens only in summer.
From Turku cathedral I walked down walk along the banks of Aura river which was still frozen, past over several main buildings in Turku, till I found Turku castle. After walking some kilometers in the cold temperature and the sea breeze, I felt that Turku city increasingly friendly.
From the castle I also stopped by for a moment at a museum ship located just about 200 meters from the castle
From the museum ship, I headed to downtown Turku to meet one of my Indonesian friend who now lives in Finland now.
After a sight seeing in Turku, I returned to Helsinki and arrived at the bus station Kamppi which is also one of the main mall in Helsinki, I spent my evening in one of the cafe in that building.
The next morning, after breakfast I took a walk around the apartment and there the amazing thing is, because of the cold and dark conditions every time I went back to the apartment, made me not realize that somehow my apartment just a few meters from the seafront.
My main destination today is the world’s largest island fortress on the island Suomellinna, the island is located about 15 minutes by ferry from the port of Helsinki
After satisfied walking in the frozen sea breeze Suomenlinna island I returned back to Helsinki to spend my last day in Finland.
The day was getting dawn, I went back to the apartment, picked up my suitcase and in hurry headed to the airport. Snow fell just as I was leaving the Helsinki station towards Vantaa airport.
During my visit in Finland seems I even never saw the sun shine, just a little light between 9 am till 3 pm, the rest just cold and dark. However, the low temperature didn’t stop the enthusiasm and happily smile of the Finns. Thank you Finland for showing me the spirit of winter.
Tasha's on the way 
You managed to do quite a lot in such short time, well done! 🙂
LikeLike
Thank you. I have no option. I could wait my long holiday that maybe comes maybe not or fly directly whenever I had a time. But no matter how short it is, I enjoyed it very much 😊
LikeLike
What a wonderful post! I read Your text with great interest and found it very informative. It was a great joy to me to read that You visited also elsewhere than Helsinki. Normally visitors see only Helsinki and thus they do not have any idea what Finland offers outside Helsinki.
It was a pity that You could not visit in Turku the open-air museum. It is really worth for a visit as many of our museums, which are small and are specialized to show things, which are not found elsewhere, like International Coffee Cup museum, Mechanical Music Museum or Teddy Bear Museum.
If You do nor mind here is link to my post presenting:
Luostarinmäki Handicrafts Museum.
Happy and safe travels!
LikeLike
Hi, Tasha.. thank you for the link that you shared on Backpacker Dunia page.. I found your blog post very interesting.. The pictures are beautiful, but they will look better if the size is bigger so readers can see every detail of them clearly.. Keep on posting 🙂
LikeLike