Finland’s warm front
A scrub-down in the sauna is just one highlight of wonderful, wacky Helsinki
They speak perfect english in helsinki. The cabbies, the shop assistants, the waiters and most of the folk you ask for directions. The bus driver from the airport sounded like a Fifties BBC announcer. he even politely corrected my grammar. Something about a double genitive I think it was. he was charming. he made an unscheduled stop to let me off as close to my hotel as possible; got out to help with my bag and painstakingly showed me the way to go, hand on my shoulder.
A passenger even offered to walk me there. The Finns are nothing if not hospitable.
Actually, I can’t remember when I last felt so welcome, so at home in a foreign city so completely new to me.
I booked in to the ever-so-slightly wacky four- star Scandic Paasi hotel, just off hakaniemi market square. The hotel is on the site of a former circus and each room is decorated with a circus theme.
If you l i ke art nouveau architecture, herrings, meatballs and saunas, then helsinki is definitely for you.
The city is a cinch to get around. It’s what locals like to call a ‘big small town’ with a population of 565,000. Nearly everyone uses public transport and there is so little traffic you get wherever you want to go in moments. And, if you fancy it, there are 650 miles of cycle lanes.
I had my 48-hour helsinki Card, which gives free transport across the city (plus entry to lots of attractions, free guide book and so on), and I was soon hopping on and off trains, trams and buses like a native, while also walking my socks off.
I took in everything from the Carl engel-designed cathedral in Senate Square to the newly refurbished Old Market hall on the quayside with its bustling food stalls (Baltic herring pie, reindeer salami or bear pate, anyone?); from the esplanadi (the city’s main park) to the striking wooden Kamppi Chapel on Narinkka Square; from the magnificent modern Temppeliaukio Church or Rock Church, hewn out of granite bedrock, to the gorgeous l ate art nouveau/ early art deco Central Railway Station, which inciden- tally is the home of the world’s most beautiful Burger King.
Don’t be daft, I didn’t eat there, I just went in to give it a stare. I dined instead at G. W. Sundmans (old building; modern food) and at the lively Atelje Finne, former studio of sculptor Johan Gunnar Finne.
I spent hours in t he boutiques, jewellers, antique shops, galleries, bars and restaurants of the Design District, and took a train to Kerava to visit Ainola, the exquisitely preserved home of national (and my) hero Jean Sibelius, the composer whose 150th anniversary falls this year. But my absolute highlight was the Kotiharjun Sauna, one of the last genuine wood-heated public saunas in helsinki, open since 1928. here I sat chatting to locals of all ages (and — ahem — sizes), trying not to notice we were all completely starkers.
We s pent 15 minutes or so on serried wooden benches i n the roasting heat (100c at the top) and 15 minutes or so on a wall outside, sipping i ce - cold l ager and Finnish wine (vodka). We repeated the process for almost three hours.
And it got better. Spotting a sign (in english) that advertised the services of Freda, ‘the sauna’s scrubber’ (I quote), I just had to make an appointment, having first checked exactly what sort of scrubber Freda might be. ‘Someone who scrubs,’ came the mystified reply. yes, of course.
And a good scrubbing is what I got, with no need to make my excuses and leave. Freda soaped and hosed me down from head to toe, and behind the ears, but not in such a way that I couldn’t tell the missus.
TRAVEL FACTS
FINNAIR (0870 241 4411, finnair.
com) flies daily from Heathrow and Manchester to Helsinki from £145 return. More information at visitfinland.com