Saturday, June 1, 2013

Day 8: Some Finnish history...

Absolutely beautiful day today!  We've heard many people comment about how unseasonable warm and nice it has been the last few days.  We're sure that we brought the nice weather to Finland with us  :)  Unlike a previous trip complete with snow and getting stuck in an airport hotel for a week!!!!!!!!!

We started our day walking around the sights of busy Helsinki.  A lot of people seem to come into the city for the weekend.  We stopped at a few shops on our way to the market harbor.  We caught a city ferry to Suomenlinna (or Sveaborg, which is the original Swedish name of the fortress) the once-Russian held fortress, which spans 5 of Finland's 180,000+ islands.  The ride was only 10-15 minutes and the ferries run quite often.  We spent the majority of our day exploring this very neat place.  About 850 people reside on these 5 islands and it is a very, very popular tourist attraction.  We took a guided tour with Susani who was extremely knowledgeable about the history of the fortress.

It was originally built when Finland still belonged to Sweden.  Augustin (who is buried on one of the islands) was the main designer of the fortress and oversaw much of it's development.  It was built because of the belief that the Russians would not be able to overtake the fortress, which would keep them from getting to the mainland.  The Sweds (and Finnish) knew that the Russians could not attack from the East because of the dense forests.  They believed that they would only be able to attack from the Baltic Sea.  It took 40 years to build because of several construction stoppages due to peace talks with Russia.  After it was finally built, another man took over as commander of Suomenlinna (Augustin had died of pneumonia).  When the Russians did attack (in the winter, which was very rare), he surrendered the fortress to the Russian military.  The fortress then came under Russian control.  About 50 years later, the Anglo-Saxon fleet (with its "modern" warfare tactics and weaponry) attacked the aging fortress to show force and power in the Baltic region.  After Finland declared independence in 1917, the Finnish government took control of Sveaborg and rename it Suomenlinna.  In 1991, it was added to the World Heritage list.

We really enjoyed this very unique place.  The landscape and views of the Baltic Sea were just beautiful.  We both went out on the rocks and felt the chilly Baltic Sea water.

When we got back to market square, we tried to visit a few museums and a church but because it was late in the day, almost everything was closed.

Tomorrow, we have plans to hop another ferry to another island to visit the Finnish zoo. :)  We also hope to visit those churches and museums that were closed today.  If we miss them, we always have Tuesday morning.  Monday is a full day.  We are crossing the Baltic Sea to visit Estonia!  We'll be up early and back late so that we can take full advantage of our time there.

Military Museum on Suomenlinna 

Augustin's burial site

Dry dock on Suomenlinna 

The Baltic Sea from Suomenlinna 

Lynn feeling the Baltic Sea

The fortresSuomenlinna 

View of Helsinki from the fortresSuomenlinna 

Suomenlinna 


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