Day 23:  Helsinki
Today I resisted accompanying Peter to the Finnish Aviation Museum and booked myself on to a guided coach tour of Porvoo, a 14th century town 50kms east of Helsinki. We had a character of a Finnish guide who had a cynical sense of humor. During the 45 minute coach trip he regaled us with accounts of the history and political background of Finland some of which I knew and have already written up. But there were intermittent pearls such as " The sun rose at 4.30 in Helsinki this morning  but on June 3rd in Lapland". We drove past a beautiful statue of a mare and her foal which is entitled 'Mother and baby' but which locals call the 1.5 horsepower statue.
There are 14,300 trees in Finland per head of population which has increased by 10 so far this year.

Porvoo was originally a port where merchants brought exotic goods but it was declared a city in 1346. Tar was made here and you can still smell it. Many artists come from Porvoo which currently has a population of 50,000 most of whom speak Swedish. The market vendors I spoke to all had good English but nodded their appreciation of my kiitos which I excell at now. That and Hei or Hei hei for Hello and Goodbye seem to do the trick. But then I have to resort to How much is that? We're in euro country now of course rather than the Krone or Krona of Scandinavia so the prices seem reasonable until I remember the exchange rate.

Our guide walked us up a seriously cobbled street to the top of the hill to visit the Porvoo Cathedral which was completed in the 1450s but which has been raided and burned down several times, the most recent of which was 2009 when a deranged boy lit a paper and through it in the window. It now has a gleaming new tiled roof. Another fire story concerned the biggest fire which was started by an old mother-in-law making her specialty fish soup. Sparks from the fire set the area alight destroying 202 of the 293 houses. Miraculously only 2 people died and the recipe for the soup is still used today. The other speciality food we were told to taste is the Runeberg cake which is baked all throughout Finland for a February celebration.  In Porvoo it is baked throughout the year, and as it is made of ground almonds I bought and ate one for lunch. Another feature that our guide showed us was the gossip mirror attached to a street frontage window enabling residents to keep an eye on the goings on in their street.

Tonight is our last in Helsinki as we board one of the huge ferries tomorrow to sail overnight to Stockholm.
Hei hei Helsinki.