99. Regional Travel #1.0 - Helsinki, Finland

In anticipation of my wife's visit to St. Petersburg, I planned a fun itinerary of things to see and do around the city - a mixture of my favorite places, the must-see tourist stops, and destinations in which she had expressed interest. But we love to travel to new places together, so thought it would be fun to go on a trip abroad while she was visiting me in Russia. We knew this would be a possibility, so made sure that my wife obtained a multiple-entry Russian visa to allow us to come and go at will. The most obvious first choice for such a trip was Finland. It's the closest country to St. Petersburg, and quite easy to reach by high-speed train.

Neither of us had done much research on Finland before we went there. In fact, we didn't make our travel arrangements until the day prior to our departure. We decided to spend all our time - basically two days worth of sightseeing - in Helsinki, the capital city. There is plenty to do there on a short visit, although nothing approaching the crazy amount of options in St. Petersburg.

We had an excellent time in Helsinki - the people are friendly, the city is easy to navigate, and there are many museums, churches, and other points of historic and cultural interest. The food was tasty, as well. We spent our time the first morning touring an island fortress, and walked around the city center to see churches and government buildings in the afternoon. Our second day, we visited two different art museums - one modern (and weird!) and the other filled with more traditional nineteenth-century paintings as well as exhibits on Nordic design. Stay tuned for posts about all of these activities.