17.06.2011 – 17.06.2011  22 °C

Had another reasonable sleep last night and woke to the most amazing buffet breakfast (puts all of the other buffet’s I’ve had to shame). Spent quite some time lingering over my brekky and then took off for Suomenlinna Fortress.

Suomenlinna Fortress is a fortress built in the early 1700s by the Swedes to protect Helsinki from the Russian’s. (By the way Helsinki was not the capital of Finland at this time, it was only later when the shipping port became so important that the capital was moved).

The fortress itself is really only just off shore from Helsinki (Helsinki is surrounded by islands) and takes about 20min by slow ferry to reach. The fortress has been preserved so is really a large park with old cannons and forts covering it. I really enjoyed spending the day walking around in the sunshine exploring all of the bunkers etc! A big game of hide and seek!

Had a very agreeable lunch in the sun and settled in to read my book for a little while before returning to the mainland to catch my ferry to Stockholm. I found a particularly agreeable place for lunch on the steps of one of the forts and was soon joined by this very inquisitive duck.. He came right up to me and tried to eat my lunch out of my fingers!!! Not happy Jan!! Needless to say I was chased away by this duck and had to find another place to eat my lunch– most annoying!

Arrived back to Helsinki with plenty of time to spare before my boat departed for Stockholm.. Luckily for me I did arrive back early because on arrival at the ferry terminal I was told that my ticket for my boat was for yesterday! All I could do was stand there and just shake my head and think to myself “this could only happen to you lady!”.. I really do need to spend more time paying attention to what I’m doing!! Fortunately the boat isn’t super full so I was able to get on at an extra cost of only 8 Euros! Thank god! (Only problem is that I’ve also booked my Stockholm accom for the wrong days and am not able to contact them.. so here’s hoping that I’m going to be ok for Stockholm as well….)

The ferry to Stockholm is more like a cruise ship than what I would call a ferry.. The rooms are far more luxurious than those on the Trans-Siberian so I feel a little special to have such nice accom and transport! The boat itself is fairly standard, 4 or so eateries, bar at the back of the boat, day spa type thing.. No swimming pool! (I guess for most of the year you wouldn’t want to!)

Anyway I have an inside cabin so for once I’m going to get a fantastic night’s sleep without the sun peaking in at me for most of the night! With that in mind I’m going to head off to sleep now and get in some well-deserved shut eye!