We found the church with very little deviation from our path and were really amazed. The church was planned in the 1930s but not completed until 1969 after a competition for the design was won by architects Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen. This picture was 'borrowed' from the Web since it shows the church lights better than my photos.
We enjoyed the background music playing and just admiring the design with the copper dome ceiling , the organ and the unique window design. Then off we went to explore a bit more of the city. Helsinki is a relatively small city, completely wired, with chairs and tables available in public places for anyone who wants to access the Internet. We wandered through the main shopping area across the street from a lovely park, then through Kauppatori Market.
Lots of interesting, local foods...small herrings cooked in large pans similar to Paella pans in Spain, smoked fish, crepes, beautiful produce (I drooled over the cherries) and, of course, souvenirs and Tee Shirts. Art bought a bright yellow Helsinki shirt that really looks good. Hope he remembers that for each one he buys, he has to discard one when we get home. He actually has amassed a very interesting collection from the places we've visited.
At this point, the sun came out, the temperature rose and we started looking for some of the landmarks from our travel guide. Several lovely and distinctly different churches were next on the list - first the beautiful Uspenski Eastern Orthodox Cathedral perched upon what I'm guessing is another granite slab
Then we walked over to Senate Square to see the magnificent, imposing white Lutheran Cathedral. John and Art were walking ahead of us and didn't seem to notice that we were falling behind (and had no idea where they were going :) We did catch up to them and found the square with a statue of Emperor Alexander II in front of the Cathedral. A real photo op! Surrounding the square were other beautiful governmental buildings and museums (which we did not visit).
By this time, we were hot and getting hungry, we decided to head back to the bus stop and return to the ship for a late lunch. We knew that the next 2 full days of tours scheduled for St. Petersberg would be exhausting, so a few relaxing hours onboard this afternoon sounded just right.
The rest of the day was typical of our shipboard routine - food, pool, reading, chatting with friends, drinks at Michael's Club, early show and dinner....Boring, not!
Slide show of pictures that I took in Helsinki:
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