Finland: The Return!
We absolutely loved our first trip to Finland last year (see original post HERE), me looking for a job and condo on Day 2 of being there, so we knew we would be coming back to explore further. With a direct flight from Chicago O’Hare to Helsinki, it could not be any easier, though still a LONG flight at almost 9 hours. We accomplished both Finland and Estonia on this trip.
The public transit situation in Finland is everything you would hope and dream it to be, so we easily caught the I train (the P train also works, it just goes on a different arc to the same end station) from the airport to Central Station in Helsinki. Having loved our stay the first time, it is a GORGEOUS hotel with THE BEST breakfast spread, I again booked us at the Scandic Grand Central Helsinki, which is at the heart of it all, and immediately adjacent to the Central Station. We stayed here for 3 nights, using it as the base to explore the aspects of Helsinki that we did not get to last year. After the long flight, we immediately hit up the hotel saunas after check-in, and I cannot recommend anything more highly!
Late-April is also not a bad time to be there, because it is still chilly enough to deter tourists but warm enough that you aren’t dying of cold with a light down jacket. Again, most of our days were spent leisurely walking many hours of the days exploring new neighborhoods, trying new and different Finnish foods, and falling more in love with the Finnish culture than we already had.
One of the things that I love most about Helsinki is how non-car friendly it is; it is all about walking and biking for primary transport and there are “road” build just for that, that are more efficient paths across the city than driving would be!
Seriously, the food is just so fresh and unprocessed, and delicious. Our first full day we were all about the cuisine. Our first stop was lunch at Eriksson (where we stopped last time) in the Old Market Hall of Vanha Kauppahalli because they serve THE BEST salmon soup in the city, and Adam is obsessed. I definitely crushed the salmon sashimi, because it is absolutely SUBLIME. When in Japan, you do tuna sashimi, when in Finland, it is all things salmon!
After another sauna, this was followed later by dinner at Ravintola Finnjavel (Michelin star for local cuisine) and had our minds blown. Adam did the traditional set course, while I selected the special set fish course. It was our first time trying reindeer, and is was SO good. We really love the aesthetic of the restaurant, and our waiter was awesome.
To wrap up the evening, we ended up at Kaisla Pub, and awesome place with an expansive tap and bottle selection. We really liked it, but unfortunately, the post-meal jet lag hit us hard and we were only able to handle a single drink here! Definitely worth your visit though!
One thing we finally tried this trip, after seeing it last year and all around this time was Tippaleipä, a traditional Finnish funnel cake. We stopped at Ekberg Bakery, famous for it and being the oldest/most popular in Helsinki. I was not a fan as it was dry and semi-crunchy, lacking much flavor, but Adam enjoyed it with coffee
One of the highlights of our entire trip was the private day-trip excursion we hired to escape the city and learn to make Adam’s favorite salmon soup and true Finnish tradition. We cannot recommend anything more highly! It was a couple that picked us up directly at our hotel in a very comfortable BMW, and drove to a national forest on a lake, about an hour north of the city. We were hosted in a traditional lodge, where we helped prepare ingredients from scratch, enjoyed a few HEAVENLY warmed Glögi, cooked over an open fire, and explored the local hiking paths.
The secret to the soup is using a special cheese to create the creamy base, and not actual liquid cream.
I still think we will end up back in Finland again, because we opted to go to Estonia rather than Lapland this trip, so we still have upper Finland to experience, and I canNOT wait!!!!
