Helsinki; Sunday, 24 July, 2005

Located just on the edge of town on a separate island and based around a hill is the Seurasaari open air museum of traditional buildings. The description of the setting and content is the same for Oslo, Riga, Copenhagen, Stockholm and now Helsinki, and sadly the content is on the whole the same. It's not surprising, given that all the countries have Northern European climates with long cold winters, and short warm summers, that they should have all developed similar styles of architecture. It's just the 4th in less than a year leaves you a little 'Traditional building fatigued' However, on a gloriously sunny day, in lovely parkland I could overlook that fact (though the blister now forming on the side of my foot would like to make a different statement).

Just by the access bridge to the island, next to the bus stop is the former presidential house. The building is no longer used by the president as it became synominous with it's longest inhabitant, Urho Kekkonen, the president of Finland from 1966 to 1981. When he left office he was allowed to remain in the house, and when he died in 1986 the building was converted into a museum to his memory.

After spending some time looking around I caught the bus back into the centre of town and stopped for a brief bite to eat before boarding the open-top hop-on-hop-off sightseeing bus for a tour of the city.

By the time it had completed it's tour it was time to meet up with my friend from work, who is a Helsinkian and spends each summer back in her home town. She showed me some of the sights before we headed out to a café for food, then drinks, then some more drinks and then it was closing time!