The dock in Finland wasn't quite as interesting as in Stockholm or Warnemeude, but we were taking a bus and "rail" trip through Helsinki. Our first stop was the Sibelius monument.
This video that I found on Youtube, is a beautiful visual and musical tribute to Finland. Around 5:23 begins the melody to my favorite hymn "Be Still My Soul" which is, of course, "Finlandia".
After a bus tour around the city, we got on the tram to basically see almost everything we'd already seen by bus. This was not the greatest excursion---several reported back at the ship with wonderful excursion in Porvoo and my brother and his wife visited a horse farm which they enjoyed. The video above hints at some of what I considered the best part of this excursion---learning about the people.
Finland has been dominated by Sweden and Russia over the years. Their signs are all bi-lingual with Finnish and Swedish---the languages are not remotely related. Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are not related to the dominate language family in Europe---Indo-European---which includes Slavic, German, Latin languages as well as Urdu, Pinjabi Hindi and Bengali of India!
Here, are Finnish, Swedish and English---my German speaking friends shouldn't have any trouble reading the Swedish: staden= Stadt (City); ren=rein (clean), but the Finnish. . .
Of course, there were historical buildings and statues. This is actually of Russian Czar Alexander II who encouraged Finnish autonomy and the use of their own language.
What I loved about Finland were the people---their humor, their resourcefulness, their courage. In addition to Jean Sibelius, another famous son Eero Saarinen, holds a special place in the hearts of St. Louisans.
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