Day 2: arrival in Helsinki

The last leg of the flight left Singapore at 11:45 – which was 2am Qld time – so we were ready for sleeping, but the crew thought we needed another meal…  so we did.  Then swallowed a little white pill and for the first time ever on a plane, I actually had a good sleep – apart from a coupla kids wailing and waking everyone up.  The flight was a nice smooth trip – as much as I remember.

Weird timber sculpture at
Helsinki airport

At 4:30 (11:30am qld) breakfast was served and we eventually landed at 6:15 at Helsinki airport.  Our bikes had arrived at the same time as us – thankfully, so we found a deserted area and proceeded to put them back together.  Karina did well and with some helpful suggestions from her, Maggie fitted nicely back together again too.  So 2 wonderful but heavily laden bikes ready to hit the road!

Ready & raring to go

Pretty balcony geraniums

So, how to get into Helsinki?  Karina had her Garmin up and running and off we went on a Garmin tour – taking the long way I think, but let’s not knock it!  Eventually we were arriving in the main centre and I was beginning to feel I knew where some things were!  Sure enough I saw the huge steeple of the cathedral, then the ‘Mother & Child’ statue and knew that just down the road was a bike shop.

along the motorway

Pizzaeria in the rain

But by then, it was lunchtime, so we went into a Pizza cafe and had a huge single pizza each.  They were just right and weren’t as greasy as some I could mention! We went back to the bike shop and teed up bike boxes for our return in a month’s time. 

Then down through the city centre and across a bridge to Eurohostel to sign in.  We dumped all our things in our room then walked back to the city centre to the railway station to validate our EuroRail pass.  We quietly joined the queue after being told we had a 45min wait.  So we did some people-watching until it was nearly our turn.  We nearly missed our turn as one clerk accidently lit up our number, so when the next number came up – we had missed our turn.  Luckily Olga – a lovely young clerk came to our rescue – teed up our tickets and was so nice that the cranky old bags (there were 2!) were almost forgotten!

some random interesting building - Karina
decked out in rain weather gear

The weather??  Well, it was a chilly 10 when we left the airport but not too bad for riding.  But when we stopped for lunch it started to rain.  Think the temp might have dropped to -40 without ice, but maybe I exaggerate a tad!  It was damn cold, frozen face, cold wet light rain.  But when we came out of the railway station, it had all cleared away and was probably up to 10 again! 

So my opinion of Helsinki hasn’t changed much – heaps of walking looking for a supermarket, then for somewhere for dinner – we got stuck in the boutique area with only flash restaurants.  But eventually we tracked down an Italian restaurant and had a big belly full of pasta & dessert then staggered back to hostel. 

Both tired but got some things done that had to be done.  No sightseeing this time, but we do have another day here on the way home.

http://www.a-trip.com/tracks/view/107261 - here’s the link to the I-got-u map – you can see we did a few zigzags.  It reads that we covered 26km, which ties in with my bike computer stats:

distance 26km, 2 hours riding, avg 12kph (no hills just dodging around bikeways, footpaths etc) max 35kph.