Good morning, Helsinki!

We hired an apartment rather than booking a hotel, so we had our fridge stocked with goodness for our breakfasts and snacks. Bagels, cream cheese and smoked salmon, yes please! I also became totally addicted to these smoothies:

I wish they sold them here. To be honest, a smoothie is a smoothie. I just really like the packaging.

We started off in the city centre to catch the tour bus outside the Helsinki Cathedral. It’s just such a stunning building! If it was a palace rather than a cathedral then I would totally move in.

Emperor Alexander II catching some rays.

This was absolutely amazing. I love this placee! This is the Temppeliaukio Church AKA The Rock Church, which is a church made pretty much entirely from stone. It’s built underground and the stone inside is in larger part, totally unworked. It’s like a big, stunning cave and is a delightfully chilled haven from the warm weather outside.

The church had a piano playing as people came in to relax/pray/light candles and we were informed that concerts take place her regularly due to the excellent acoustics, courtesy of the untouched stone walls. I can totally imagine a choir signing at Christmas time in there. It would be amazing.

The roof is amazing – a big copper spiral effect with huge skylight slits beneath it.

God’s light shining on me…

We then went towards the The Sibelius Monument but got distracted by the lure of a cafe.

How cute?

We arrived to the cutest little outdoor haven with picnic benches and the gorgeous smell of bonfire in the air. The cafe is pretty weird – like one of those really busy pictures filled with random objetcs and you need to pick certain ones out.

You know the ones, right?

A SWING!

So happy.

After a rest and some ice cream, we walked round to the The Sibelius Monument which is a stunning sculpture that consists of 600 hollow steel pipes welded together in a wave-like pattern which is meant to represent Sibelius’ music. I have no idea who he is, or what his music sounds like, but I love this monument.

This little girl running around was absolutely hilarious – she was everywhere when we tried to take pictures of anything! A group of Japanese tourists were absolutely loving her and took pictures of her adventures around the monument and park.

I bought Moomin biscuits. They were delicious.

We decided to talk a walk down to the city centre in the hunt for somewhere to hang out for the evening. Hard Rock Cafe was blaring out the tunes so we stopped by for a few of their flagship cocktails and a sing song. It was a great ending to a great day!