We’ve had a couple of fairly quiet, non-touristy days in Helsinki, sleeping in, cooking, doing washing, working out how and where to clean the car before we return it in Stockholm on Monday. It feels like the first section of our trip, the Scandinavian road trip part, is coming to an end and we’re getting ready for the Russian train trip part.

We had good intentions of visiting Suomilinna, ‘the fortress of Finland’, today. It’s a short local ferry ride from the centre of town. We found some cheap metered parking and walked into the city, but it started raining before we got to the wharf and we had no wet weather gear with us. We took shelter in a David Jones-type department store but even after we had looked at all the electrical appliances we never knew existed – designer stubble electric razor, home fake nail kit, domestic laser hair removal instrument of torture – it was still overcast and raining occasionally, so we headed back to the apartment and baked apple turnovers for afternoon tea instead.

Tomorrow night we’re putting the car on a ferry and heading back to Stockholm, arriving at around 10am on Sunday. We have to return the car on Monday morning, and on Monday evening we’re flying to Riga in Latvia. We’ll spend a day there, then go to St Petersburg for a few days, catch a train to Moscow for a few days and then start our Trans-Siberian train trip.

We are offloading giving our camping gear (tent, chairs, table, various other bits and pieces) to the owner of the apartment. Not sure what he plans to do with it, but we’d rather he take it to use or give away or sell  on eBay or do whatever he likes with it so long as we don’t have to throw it out. We’ll hopefully then be down to one duffle bag plus our nice small Osprey that are within the size limits for carry-on bags.

At the market in Helsinki

Floating Restaurant. Helsinki has lots of islands and inlets

One of the main streets in central Helsinki