The best way to travel from Stockholm to Helsinki is by overnight ferry. At least two ferries cross daily, and these are 2000-plus passenger ships, with shops, restaurants, casinos, and even entertainment on board. The Baltic Sea has over 30,000 small islands; we saw many along the way, many with private homes.
In Helsinki, we stayed in an apartment hotel near the Old Town. It was walkable to many attractions. One special advantage of traveling in Scandinavian countries is their public transportation systems. In Poland, senior citizens like us ride free. We hop on and hop off buses and trams without anyone checking. In other countries, we use local transit apps (Rejsekort in Copenhagen, SL in Stockholm, both linked directly to the credit card for payment). In Helsinki, the HSL app gave us trouble, but we found that we just tapped our credit card when boarding the bus, and no app was needed. Learning to travel like locals is essential if you are visiting these countries on your own, as we were. Google Maps and Google Translate were also convenient apps on the road.
Helsinki is Finland’s capital and is renowned for its sustainable urban design. We took a nice walk along its waterfront trail, enjoying the scenery, wildlife, and even did a little exercise on the gym equipment. We ended up at the Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden (part of the University of Helsinki). Its conservatory, the ‘Winter Garden’, was established in 1895 and houses an extensive plant collection. The outdoor garden is free, and the Finnish Museum of Natural History is grand, hosting one of the world’s largest ligand research centers. This garden is definitely worth a visit.
One of the most popular tourist attractions in Helsinki is a trip to Tallinn, Estonia. A two-hour ferry across the Gulf of Finland gets you to the Capital of Estonia. The Old Town is one of the best-preserved medieval cities in Europe. Now, with all the high-tech and IT companies, it is one of the world’s top 10 digital cities. We spent a glorious day wandering and enjoying the local festival in the market square.
I have been keeping track of all the countries I have visited over the years, and my friend recommended the app 3Pulse for a more accurate count. I am glad to have finally achieved my lifelong goal of visiting all seven continents and 100 countries. Now that any new countries would be the icing on the cake. I am sure there are more cities and sights that I have missed counting over the years. When I have time to revisit my old journals, I will update the map then. For a girl from Taiwan whose first international trip was to the USA for graduate school, I have come a long way.
