Despite how amazing the Italian Alps were, there real reason that I brought my skis with me to Europe was to do a World Loppet race. For those who don't know, the World Loppet is a series of marathon-style ski races all around the world that take place nearly every weekend over winter. The American Birkebeiner in Northern Wisconsin is one of two in North America and gets it's name from a historical trek by a few viking warriors in Norway. This was the race that I really wanted to get in on, but it turned out to be the same weekend that I would be meeting my parents in Amsterdam (another post which will be coming soon). So as the winter felt like it was slowly sneaking away from me, I searched for the next possible race I could join and came across the Finlandia-Hiihto taking place that Saturday!
I made some quick arrangements, booked a flight and hostel, and prepped my skis for a 42km race less than a week from when I discovered it. Since I was already going to Finland, I figured that I might as well explore Helsinki a little as well, and so I arrived on the afternoon of Thursday, February 25th to wander the streets of that sleepy old city.
Now Helsinki, it turns out, is tiny given that it's the largest city, and the capital, of an entire country. I mean, this place has about two and a half times the population of Madison and is actually smaller by land area. This was actually kind of an advantage as I was able to see virtually everything I read about or was told to see in just a day couple of days.
View of some buildings beside Esplanadi Park
Looking over the harbor to some buildings near Market Square
Statue of Johan Ludwig Runeberg, a 19th century Swedish-Finnish poet and the national poet of Finland, in the center of Esplanadi Park
Just a nice view of a cozy little Helsinkian street
Looking over the harbor near Market Square
I spent my first afternoon just wondering about, checking out some of the public spaces my Finnish friend Mia recommended such as Esplanadi Park and Market Square. It wasn't very cold but, much like Copenhagen, the wind off of the water was aggressive! Thankfully I had some nice wind blocking gear with me making everything a bit more bearable.
One of my favorite parts was just walking around and looking at the buildings. Now I've heard that the architecture in Helsinki is pretty neat, but it's also very hard to explain. There's this minimalist simplicity common to Northern Europe, and particularly Scandinavia, but there's just a touch of embellishment that you would expect in Florence, Madrid, or Nice. Needless to say, I'm a fan, and I have pictures enough to prove that.
Neat buildings on the East side of the city
Super cool apartment building that looks a bit like a castle
Just your common, everyday channel connecting the South and North Harbors
Buildings lining the south side of Senate Square
Their National Museum is basically a castle, is that not the greatest?
On my first full day in Helsinki, I again did just a bunch of walking around, but this time stopping into things. I visited three vastly different churches in different parts of town. Each was really cool for its own reasons. The first was the Uspenski Cathedral. This is an Orthodox Christian cathedral built during one of the many Russian occupations of Finland. It sits atop a hill in the easternmost neighborhood of Katajanokka. The exterior is very ornate, as is the interior.
Exterior from the east
Exterior from the west
Elaborate altar and chandelier with way too many candles; there was scaffolding set up in the whole interior and they seemed to be doing restoration work on the ceiling
Poor photo of awesome mosaic work on the ceiling; essentially all of the ceiling was done in this fashion
Closer to the city center but not so far away lies the Helsinki Cathedral, a Lutheran cathedral from the 19th century. This one was more impressive than ornate as it was quite large and up a lot of stairs from Senate Square, but not very lavish at all. The interior is quite plain with just a few statues and a nice little organ.
Full frontal view from Senate Square
Unfortunately dark photo of the altar
View of the organ opposite the altar
The cathedral in the background with a statue to Russian Emperor Alexander II in the middle of Senate Square
The third wasn't so much a church as it is simply a chapel. In fact, it's known as the Kamppi Chapel and it lies in the city center right by a large shopping mall. Technically a Lutheran chapel, it is also known as "The Chapel of Silence" as it isn't a place where services are held, rather it's a destination for some silent meditation in a warm, highly modern but natural atmosphere. It really can't be explained that well other than a very tranquil space.
Only ten pews lined the small chapel; there were three people there when I got there and two new people when I left, so it seems to see decent traffic
The lighting was really creatively done to make it indirect and much softer
Due to its shape, this panorama is a bit odd, but it helps to show all of the chapel including the fake rock pillows to the right
View of the chapel from the north; the pews would be facing toward the higher part to the right of the chapel
The churches were pretty unique and very Finnish, but there was still more to see. I made my way north by tram, the most convenient way to get around given that a four-day metro pass only costs 12 Euro and there was a stop right outside of my hostel, to a park with the Villa Hakasalmi. This lovely little villa was once a private residence of a notable musical talent in Finland whose name escapes me. Due to its musical background, it now serves as a music museum as a part of the Finnish national museum system. There was a very interesting exhibit at the time I was there about the development of music in Finland from being little more than hymns and children's songs to including a world renowned opera company and a large rock and roll scene. Regrettably my phone has been having some issues and I don't know what happened to the pictures I took here and from my next destination, Suomenlinna Sea Fortress.
I know what you're thinking, why does a nice little country like Finland need something as imposing as a sea fortress? Well, it wasn't actually Finland who built this particular fortress, although that is probably reason enough to have built one in the first place. Suomenlinna was actually built in the mid-18th century by the Swedish Kingdom back when Finland was a buffer state under their control. After its construction, the sea fortress changed hands an unimaginable number of times. If my memory serves, the fort was taken by the Russian Empire, then the Swedish, then Russia, then Germany for a little bit, then France very briefly, then Sweden again, and then Finland finally gained control over their own land following World War I. That's right, all of Europe had to fight a world war before Finland managed to get their own territory under control.
Today it is actually a residential neighborhood besides being a living museum. About 900 inhabitants live permanently on the island which has a grocery store, church, and even a hostel, while only about 350 people work on the island. That means at least 550 people, and likely more, have a 25 minute commute by ferry just to get to the mainland every day; I do not envy these people.
Before ending my day of exploration, I stopped by a classic market nearby my hostel called Hakaniemi Market Hall. This indoor market mostly sells meats, but has some produce stalls and bakery vendors as well. For dinner I bought a couple of meat pies, one with salmon and one with some kind of white fish. They were simple but delicious, although they did cost me an arm and a leg. Basically everything in Finland is expensive, so mostly I just cooked in my hostel to save money, something I rarely do while travelling. It probably worked out for the best, though, as I needed to get up before 6am both on race day and the day of my flight home, making breakfast on my own a necessity.
On race day, I got up before the sun to ensure that I could catch the morning train to a little town called Lahti a little shy of an hour from Helsinki. Thankfully the race didn't begin until 10am, much later than most races do, allowing me to simply stay in Helsinki and take a train to and from the race the day of. Yet again I don't have pictures of the area, so my words will have to suffice. Thankfully the landscape outside of the city is remarkably similar to northern Wisconsin: rolling hills, plentiful snow, pine forests, and lakes dotted all about. It was a lovely change from the urban environments I typically find myself travelling to.
Upon arriving in Lahti, I walked about a mile from the train station to - get this - the ski stadium. Let me just give you a moment for the term ski stadium to sink in. You good? Okay. So there is literally a U-style stadium on the north end of town that acts as the landing space for two ski jumps in addition to the start and finish of numerous cross country ski events, including the Finlandia-Hiihto. Several hundred people at a time gathered in the center of the snow filled stadium to go off in waves and take to the trails for 42km of skiing.
The race staff had a pretty neat service where you could pick up a flag sticker to attach to your bib, the thing that you wear with a race number on it, so that people could tell what country you come from! I met a few random Americans in the starting pen just because of this feature. While out on the trails, I happened to see a middle-aged man wearing a Sisu race kit; Sisu is a now-defunct nordic ski club based out of the Twin Cities, and sure enough this guy used to be a master skier with the club! The race itself went quite well. My glide wax wasn't great but I had decent kick thanks to SkiGo purple, the best kick in the world (shout out to Mary Eloranta, the disciple of SkiGo kick wax who showed me the light). I hit a rut between 20-27km or so, but kicked it up a lot after the 32km mark and managed to finish in 3:32:25. The best part was the long downhill that swooped back into the ski stadium for a dramatic finish received by a few hundred cheering spectators.
As is tradition, the race provided delicious soup post-race. Being on my own, I just asked to sit in some empty seats at the first table I came across, only to be talking to a group of Americans. There was a group of about a dozen folks, with ages ranging from 40 to 65, who were on a two week holiday together to do three races across Finland, Sweden, and Norway. We got to chatting and it turns out that one of the women attended UW-Madison and grew up in Hayward, another guy's son just graduated from UW, and yet another guy's son had UW in his top three schools for next year. Furthermore, two of the people live in Minnesota, one of whom is the man I saw on the trail wearing the Sisu kit! In case that wasn't enough small world-isms, the woman from Wisconsin had the craziest connection to cap it all off.
She was discussing that her son-in-law, who lives with her daughter in Colorado, was recently in Europe for work. This guy apparently designs the layout of ski hills, which I suppose is a job that somebody has to do, and he was contracted to design the hill for this artificial, waste-free slope that uses waste energy from an adjacent power plant somewhere in Scandinavia. I had just read an article the week before about Copenhill, an artificial ski slope being built in Copenhagen right now and matching this woman's description. Sure enough, this was the hill that her son-in-law was working on. Very truly a small world.
After getting back to Helsinki I was pretty exhausted so I wanted to relax and do no more walking. In Finland, or anywhere really, the best way to relax is visiting a sauna. Now, Finns have a tendency to trash talk saunas everywhere they go because they aren't hot enough, are too wet (or lord have mercy if a Finn thinks it's too dry), don't have any cold water to rinse with, and so on. Therefore my expectations were rather high. I certainly wasn't disappointed, but either I'm missing something or Finns just need something to unnecessarily complain about.
I went to a place called Kotiharjun Sauna Oy as it was highly recommended on a few forums for its authenticity. Upon entering, the old-as-the-hills Finnish woman who ran the place welcomed me \and gave me a rundown of what the various rooms and waters were for. It was balmy in the best sort of way, and the cold rinsing water was cooold, but overall I wasn't any more blown away than I have been by other saunas. Nevertheless, it was exactly the kind of relaxing evening I needed.
The next morning I awoke at 6am once again to catch a bus for the airport where my plane would take me back to Copenhagen. It was a brief trip but an excellent excursion to a new city for me. It was wonderful to get out on my skis another time, and this time for a race. With a new World Loppet race under my belt, I'm ready for another, although the ski season is pretty done with in the more accessible parts of the world. Maybe for my next outdoor adventure, hiking will have to suffice.
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