Sunday Showcase: Suomenlinna Fortress Island + Lunch At Ikea
I made this post last June. If you're not that into the IKEA part, then you can scroll down just a bit to reach the Suomenlinnna fortress island part.
I consider this post a potentially interesting introduction to parts of the fortress island(s) that are a bit off the beaten path. The minimum security prison is not even marked on any maps.
Lahti has a population of about 120,000 but you can't buy Russian rubles anywhere in the city. The nearest place where rubles can be bought is Forex at the Jumbo shopping mall in Vantaa an hour's drive from our home. In Russia, you need cash because credit cards are not welcome everywhere.
After exchanging currency, we ate at IKEA in Vantaa. They happened to have a summer buffet. 10€ for adults, 5€ for kids. If you want to eat decent food on the cheap, IKEA is an ok choice.
Salad
Fish
Main course
Dessert. This was yougurt+merengue+lime something. Pretty good.
Capuccino
After eating, we headed for Suomenlinna fortress in Helsinki. It was another hot day, 30 C, and we figured it would be nice and cool by the sea. Suomenlinna is practically a very large open air museum on a group of four islands accessible at the price of a Helsinki city bus ticket. That's because there are actually hundreds of residents in addition to the fortress on the islands.
We came close to a departing Viking Line Sweden ferry.
Naval Academy
Silja Line sailed shortly before Viking Line.
Yet another passenger ship in the distance
A close encounter of another kind
The sea voyage took about 10-15 minutes. These spikes were on top of a gate. They were probably added to prevent seagulls from sitting and shitting on the gate mechanism.
Canadian geese were abundant on the island.
Their chicks had hatched a short while ago. We saw hundreds of them.
We took a walk on the eastern side of the island, off the beaten path.
There is a cafeteria in that house but it was closed.
Ok. Now what?
Let's see what's on the inside of the wall.
The gate to Suomenlinna minimum security prison. This is the last stop for prisoners before release on parole. Gaining freedom is a step-by-step process.
These are actually residential buildings. The bicycles are a dead giveaway.
This channel is between the two main islands. We heard a loud rumble from the sea in the south.
A seagull?
We decided to head back. After taking this shot, I put the camera away to protect it from the rain.
The rain shower turned out to be very brief and I got my camera out of the bag again.
Hanko, a Hamina class missile boat.
Back to the city.
I like eating at ikea too, even those crappy hotdogs....yum so cheap. The dried onion is awesome, I buy it from the ikea market to take home.
Thats a beautiful island, lots of naval history.
Those aren't Canadian geese. canadian geese are brown, white and black, and very agressive.
Yep. They're barnacle geese.
Interesting coinsidence, I’m just listening to a crime novel where one of the murders happened in Suomenlinna.
It’s been a very long time since I last visited Suomenlinna, I really should go there this summer if I head to Helsinki. Lovely pictures you got there btw!
Thanks! I also think a few of them were good. Svartholma was expensive to get to. The boat tickets cost €15 per person (return included). The price of a single bus/tram/local train ticket in Helsinki is around €2 (return not included unless you return within an hour).
Whao, this will definitely hurt the tourism sector of Russia and by extension the economy. I never research into the sanctions placed on Russia,but this is an eye opener. You got beautiful pictures here. I love the pictures.
The sanctions have nothing to do with this. I've just seen that card terminals aren't quite as common in Russia as they are in the West. Of course, at any large shopping center they take cards.
Ok, thank you for the clarification. Surprised, that card terminals are not a thing over there as most places in the America(North and South)
They are a thing in Russia. It's just that they're not welcome everywhere.