Just One Day in Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

I often think how conveniently sized Helsinki is. It’s a human-sized city, small enough to be easily understood … Helsinki has quiet confidence … It’s calm but not boring, humble but not shy.

When you only have one day to explore a city, being ‘small enough to be easily understood’ is a real plus point. And one day was all we had, on this occasion at least. But we really took to Helsinki, so maybe in the future we’ll come back for a more in-depth look.

I haven’t quite finished my Arctic diary series, but I want to break off for this one post and tell you about what we did on our way home. The Quark itinerary ended when we landed back in Helsinki after a flight from Longyearbyen, but they recommend that you don’t plan an onward flight home on the same day as Svalbard weather can mean flights are delayed. Ours wasn’t, but a landing scheduled for the early evening meant that it made sense to stay over. So we booked a couple of nights at a city centre hotel and planned to spend a day exploring a place neither of us had previously visited. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).