Our Visit to Finland

In our visit to Finland, we were in Helsinki, in Suomenlinna and in Nuuksio National Park. This is what we lived there. Enjoy it!




Our visit to Helsinki

We went to see the sights, walking along the streets of Helsinki. Harri, as a tourist guide, showed us a beautiful Lutheran church, which was excavated in the rock. It was circle shaped and the roof was made by rolled copper. From the outside you could never imagine what there was inside.

Secondly, we made our way towards the Parliament. It was a very big building. You had to climb many stairs to get to the top. The Parliament had a lot of columns too.

Just in front of the Parliament we visited the Museum of Contemporary Art “Kiasma”. This is a big and a modern building. Its programme includes exhibitions presenting Finnish and international contemporary art, collection displays performances in the Kiasma Theatre, workshops, seminars and lectures. It also has a Store and a Café on the ground floor.

After that we went to the centre where we could see the life of the city with lots of shops, big stores, cafés, book shops, the traffic, the tram, people sat outside a bar having perhaps a coffee … Really nice!

Walking and walking we went by the Explanade area, the President Palace where we could see the guards dressed in their uniforms, and the harbour.

Then we visited the Uspenski Cathedral (Orthodox) situated on the top of a hill. Made by red bricks and with green roof, it was amazing! We came in. It was different from the Cathedrals we are used to see here in Spain. It didn’t have many pews, but it had a big amount of religious icons. Outside this Cathedral you had a beautiful view of Helsinki.

Finally we went to see the Lutheran Cathedral located at the top of a big stoop where lots of young people were sat. It was white and with green roof. It was surrounded by the oldest building in Helsinki, the University Library and the Government building. Inside you could find a lot of pews, no religious images, an organ and a sculpture of Luther.

The island of Suomenlinna

We took a boat in Helsinki’s harbour to go to Suomenlinna, one the thousands of Finnish islands. It took us less than 15 minutes to get there. During the trip we could see a pretty view of Helsinki as we were moving further away. We saw many islands, most of them with little wooden houses. The weather was fine, a little bit too cold, but sunny.

When we arrived to Suomenlinna we could see that the snow still remained. Lots of bikes were parked near the harbour. We could also see a church (which is in fashion nowadays to get married), lots of rustic wooden houses and paths instead of roads.

Suomenlinna is fortress built on this island. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and popular with both tourists and locals, who enjoy it as a picturesque picnic site. The name of the island comes from the Finnish Suomen linna (Castle of Finland).

Sweden started building the fortress in 1748 as a protection against Russian expansionism. As we walked we could see some cannons strategically located. We could even see an old submarine.

In Suomenlinna we saw a little beach where we could touch the really cold water of the sea. We also saw wild swans swimming peacefully, and lots of little hills that reminded us of the film “The Lord of the Rings”.

Beautiful place in Finland!


Nuuksio National Park

Nuuksio National Park is one of the 35 national parks in Finland. Established in 1994, the park spreads over an area of forests and lakes in the north-west from Helsinki. It is the closest national park to the capital.
We left the school in the teacher’s cars and in half an hour we got to Nuuksio National Park. We parked the car and started walking into the forest.
The landscape was wonderful. We were surrounded by a taiga forest, where we could see big trees such as pines, firs and birch trees with no leaves yet. There was some heather with little white flowers too. Spring is coming!
We found iced snow in the paths so sometimes it was difficult to walk without falling. There was enough snow closed by the path, so everybody could throw some snowballs.
The lakes were still frozen. Some flowers in the grass were indicating us that spring is near.
We could also see some little birds but we couldn’t hunt a bear!
We stopped in a picnic area. There was a big frozen lake there and we could take lots of beautiful pictures. We also ate sausages and played to a game called “Steal the flag”. As we were running all the time we couldn’t feel the cold weather. We enjoyed ourselves quite a lot!