ismo

It turns out our hotel is perfectly located for people who like to explore on foot, as we do. Yesterday we started out on a self-guided walking tour that one of our books recommended. We strolled through busy shopping areas with posh stores--Marimekko, Michael Kors, etc.--and ended up in Market Square, near the harbor where cruise ships could be seen plying in and out. People were selling all kinds of things: cloudberries, puuka knives, reindeer hides, fried fish. We walked up the 49 steps to the Lutheran cathedral and surveyed the view from there. At that point I was exhausted. I still was not 100% back to normal. So we walked back to the hotel and took a siesta.

We revived after a rest, and walked back through the shopping district to a very touristy but funny and nice place called Harald, where you can eat a Viking dinner surrounded by stuffed owls, pine branches, antlers, oars, and little kids in plastic horned helmets. We ate herring and reindeer meat and pancakes with berries. Then we strolled into the Esplanade, a park where we looked at many statues and sat watching people enjoy themselves in the dusk. On the way, we heard buskers playing Scott Joplin on the glockenspiel, followed by Vivaldi on the glockenspiel. In the park, a man created endless flocks of rainbow bubbles for an audience of delighted children. A seagull in black and white plumage, like a tuxedo, perched on the head of a statue labeled "Truth." She held a small flame in her hand. Her companion, labeled "Fable," held a bird. Perhaps the seagull was mocking the notion that a bird represents what is fickle and ephemeral. "Oh, Truth," he squawked. "You think you're all that . . . well, guess what, you have a bird standing on your head! And I'm going to stand here as long as I want, so there."

Today, we (inadvertently) took the Special Tour of Buildings That Are Not Open. We walked quite a long way, past a statue of General Mannerheim, to see the Finnish National Museum, which supposedly has some fascinating exhibitis. However, the grand steps in front of it were blocked by barriers and piled high with construction materials. We walked all the way around the block, hoping to find an entrance, but didn't see one. We saw a couple of workers in hard hats trying to figure out how to get in, and they seemed to be having trouble too. We gave it up and sat down to rest for a minute in a small park with a fountain. While we sat there, we observed a couple of groups of tourists trying to figure out how to get into the museum. One group set off on a similar path to ours. They never came back. Maybe there was a way in, but we couldn't find it.

We retraced our steps and branched off in another direction to find Church on the Rock, a church that was built literally inside a stone hill. We climbed all around the top of it--as far as you could go before meeting graphic signs that indicated "Do not climb up here or you will meet a tragic fate." When we got around to the entrance at last, we found it roped off, with a sign saying it would open an hour and a half later. We weren't really inclined to wait that long to see another church interior, so we walked back in the direction of the hotel--footsore by now. The first place we stopped for lunch was very busy and crowded, so we moved on to a cafe called Roasberg, where we revived ourselves with delicious traditional Finnish salmon soup with dill, carrots, and potatoes, a hunk of bread and butter, and a glass of cranberry cider (in my case) and for the Sparrowhawk, a dark German lager. Then another siesta seemed necessary. The hiking around to Not See Things wasn't really too bad. Yesterday we saw a lot of shopping areas and broad major streets. Today we got to walk through more residential neighborhoods and get a peek at how people live.

The first place we tried for dinner was also closed, but it was for the best. We had a lovely meal at Sunn, across from the cathedral square. They served price fixe meals. Mine was Finnish-style carpaccio, with radish and watercress, followed by perch with perfect baby vegetables, and raspberry Pavlova. Then we crossed the square to the cathedral to hear an organ concert of pieces by Finnish composers, many of them echoing folk tunes. To me, they really had the sound of the north.

As Queenie said when I sent her some of my pictures, "The light is everything." The northern light and the wind from the sea are satisfying my Viking soul.