Helsinki, Round II

I've already regaled you with a quick description of my first first venture to Helsinki. The brief time I spent there was not nearly long enough. As a general rule, at least at this point, I tend to avoid visiting the same place twice, as a my traveling time and budget are both quite limited. But in this case, I was willing to make an exception, and it really paid off. I also got a much better look at the city this time since I had a really awesome local dude to show me around. We spent a really wonderful day walking all around the city, checking out a lot of areas and enjoying lunch at nice little harbor-side café I'll try to avoid to many duplicate pictures, but a few repeats will be hard to avoid.

The front of this statue has the Finnish national anthem on it. Which is for some reason written here in Swedish.

We aren't entirely sure what denomination this church is, but it's pretty rad looking.

The Helsinki Lutheran cathedral, from a slightly different angle than before.

Another church of undisclosed denomination. Rather Soviet looking.

Ducks.

Bridge over the train tracks.

Weeds next to a lake. Being able to walk across the lakes here makes getting around much faster and easier. Talk about shortcuts.

We went to the Olympic stadium.

There was a fantastic view from the top of the tower there.

Sunset from inside the Sibelius Monument.

Tubes on tubes on tubes.

Finland has really struck a chord with me, to the point that I'm already looking at flights back for the summer. I think enjoying 20 hours of sunlight in the woods or towns there would be an amazing experience. 

Into the Finnish Forest

This past weekend I spent about four delightful days in Finland with my illustrious colleague Adam. We divided our time between Helsinki and Nuuksio National Forest, a park about 40km northwest of the city, near the suburb Espoo. Thanks to the combination of the scenery and the fantastic people I met, I think this my favorite trip I've ever taken.

The nearest thing I can liken the woods of Finland to are the Adirondacks or the pine forests of Maine, but with many more lakes; the country itself has 187,888 lakes. It was so wonderful to get out of the city and into some true wilderness. It felt a little bit like going home, and really made me realize how much I miss having (almost) immediate access to the great outdoors.

Any one for some snowshoeing?

Ja tak!

As much as I love the people I hang out with here in beauteous Copenhagen, it was also really wonderful to leave the herd for a little while and make some new connections. And make them we did. Not only did we spend a lot of quality time with our two fantastic hosts, Pekka and Marek, we also met a pack of Danes and other assorted Viking-ly people out in the wilds of Nuuksio. snowshoeing Danes are pictured above.

This particular post is about the my time in the forest though, so for now, I'll stick to that. And what better way to start off than with some pictures?

A hut, where we roasted sausages and made coffee over an open fire.

We did a bit of sledding.

One of the main purposes for this trip was to go in a real Finnish sauna, and jump in a Finnish lake. That was a goal I accomplished quite admirably.

The walk down to the sauna at dusk.

This. I jumped into this. Several times.

The long walk back to warmth.

The food in the forest was amazing. Words simply cannot do it justice. and the conversation was even better. Pekka is a fascinating man, and one of the most insightful people I have ever met. And there's just something about an open fire and being surrounded by silent trees that inspires hours of talking.

We roasted rainbow trout next to a fire. This is a particularly wonderful cooking method, because not only does it result in wonderfully tender, juicy fish, but it also creates the perfect atmosphere for reflective pre-dinner conversation.

The finished product.

At least for me, one of the major highlights of the trip was spending the night somewhere completely dark and silent. Such a welcome break from my very noisy apartment across the lakes from a hospital. Waking up in the middle of a snow covered forest wasn't half bad.

Dawn.

I could get used to waking up to this.

After a nice breakfast, and chat with a friendly American family who were stopping in to enjoy the sauna, we headed off for some snowshoeing and ice fishing. It was pretty cool to be casually walking across lakes, stopping off at Pekka's preferred fishing spots. I actually caught a fish- something I'm quite proud of.

Pekka, demonstrating the proper method of hole drilling.

Icicles.

Finnish is a funky language. But Finnish accents are great!

And then I got to drive back to Helsinki. 

Roskilde Cathedral

Roskilde Cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and a cathedral of the national religion of Denmark, Lutheranism. It's been around for a while- it was built during the 12th and 13th centuries, and is the first Gothic cathedral to have been constructed from brick.

It was not the original church to be built on the site though- that honor goes to the Trinity Church, built by Harald Bluetooth in the late 900s. For future reference, if you ever find yourself competing at a trivia night in Copenhagen, good old Harald Bluetooth was the first Danish monarch to be buried in the Roskilde Cathedral, as his body is still down there beneath the 'new' church.

Le façade.

The main aisle.

There are five chapels within the cathedral, all housing the remains of Danish monarchs. Comparing the coffins and sepulchral monuments throughout history is extremely interesting, as is seeing the way the design and decoration of all the chapels varies.

The monument to Christian I.

A detail of the panel on the lower left.

One of the many coffins in Frederick V's Chapel. According to our guide, all the metalwork on the coffins in this chapel is actually gold.

Christian IV's Chapel.

And the ceiling in there. This is one of my top five favorite ceilings of all time.

The ceiling in St. Brigitte's Chapel. This is where the current Danish queen, Queen Margrethe II has chosen to be buried, when the time comes.

No church would be complete without a nice picture of the Devil looking down on you. Apparently people used to find depictions of the Devil like this one so terrifying that all the paintings in this chapel were actually painted over and have only recently been restored.

A model of Margrethe's future burial monument. Don't be alarmed- she won't be encased in clear crystal- her coffin will be underneath this,, to be joined by that of her son and successor, Frederick. after his death.

Roskilde Viking Ship Museum

Roskilde is a town on the west coast of Sjælland, the island that Copenhagen is on. It's quite old; people have been living there since the Viking era. One of the reasons it's been around so long is it's location at the end of a 40km long fjord. It's not the majestic geological formation one the word 'fjord' usually conjures up, but it's attractive nonetheless.

Behold, the fjord.

This allowed the residents easy access to the ocean and their many trading routes, while also providing security from attackers. In order to reach Roskilde, invaders would have to make it all the way down this fjord, which was, shall we say, well guarded. There were canals along it's length that held boats. With them, the Danes were able to cut off the enemy fleets' retreat back out to the open ocean.

They also had a sunken blockade in the middle of the fjord, made of old ships that they scuttled. Of course, the local Danes knew exactly where is was and hod to navigate around it, but invaders did not. The ships on display at the Roskilde Museum are the ones that made up the blockade. They are particularly interesting because they are examples of five different kinds of vessels: an ocean-going trading ship (16m), a coastal trading ship (14m), a fishing ship (11m), and two longships, small (17m) and large (30m). Unlike the ships on display at the Oslo Viking ship museum (see my past entry on that here), these were not burial ships, but ones that were actually used in daily life. So without further ado, pictures of ships.

What's amazing is that these ships were excavated in just four months.

And assembled.

From thousands of pieces.

Bonus: dead seagull. Weirdly picturesque.