I ask myself, why am I procrastinating on writing up trip recaps on the amazing trip that was our Alaskan cruise? Partly because it is both annoying to get the photos into the blog and because it is hard to decide which ones to choose! And partly because I would rather sit around reading, drinking coffee and planning the next trip, hahah. Who wants to live in the past, am I right? Plus, the world is burning around us, and I just want to hide and, well, I suppose that is a good reason to write a trip report.
So instead, I shall give you some highlights of the most recent life updates. Somehow I have acquire newer friends, and I ended up taking a short trip to Wisconsin with them, leaving Louie behind to hold down the fort, and by that I mean, the cats. My friends Marie and Fiona and myself drove about 5 1/2 hours north to Lake Geneva to escape the heat last week. At this we failed miserably. We got to our hotel, got out of the car swearing and lugging our suitcases complaining bitterly about how we thought that Wisconsin was NORTH and that the LAKE was supposed to be cooler and all of these things that were promised us and muttering things about GLOBAL WARMING and such.
It had been a long time since I’d been on a girls’ trip, and I am so glad Marie made this happen! Marie is a friend from when I worked at my before school job and though really she is young enough to be my youngest sister (ha!) we still have enough in common, and enjoy brunch, ice cream, shopping, and chatting enough to make Fiona put her headphones on to get away from it.
This was the hotel. Unfortunately our room overlooked the parking lot rather than the lake.
There was a shop named after me! Unfortunately it wasn’t one of my favorite shops and I didn’t even get anything in it.
We took a boat tour of the Lake. It was very interesting to hear stories of the houses and the people who lived there, with names you would recognized, like Wrigley and Morton.
It was only a 1 hour tour and went by quickly. There were longer tours, but Fiona wasn’t a huge boat person. If I ever go back, I want to do the mail tour, where you can watch the mail being delivered by people who literally jump off the boat to deliver mail, and jump back on the boat after delivering it–the boat doesn’t stop!
Our hotel from the boat tour. We stayed at the Lake Geneva Inn and I would recommend it. Very nice, very good location. The restaurant was also pretty good, with a great view.
We walked a bit of the shorepath one day. The shorepath is about 20 miles long and goes all the way around Lake Geneva, but we just walked a bit from our hotel and back. It goes through private property–all property owners are required to allow the path through their property along the edge and it’s really neat. Very European.
Not all parts of the path are landscaped like this, but this was a beautiful part.
We did tons of shopping and I brought home some cheese curds, rhubarb jam, and a few other things to share with Louie. We had some good food and fun conversations, and it was a relaxing few days. It was hot and humid most of the time but we managed: it was hot and humid across most of the country due to the heat wave so what can you do?
I got back to St Louis and had a bunch of wedding gigs, and then a day off. I did get a weird bug bite on my arm that I think was a spider bite that had quite a reaction–I was trying to decide, do I go to Urgent Care, do I not, and I was busy with work, and the hours weren’t good, and now it is improving. It’s still itchy but definitely improving, so I guess I’m glad I saved the money (how American of me, right?).
Louie and I went for a bike ride yesterday, 18 miles on the Katy Trail–the forecast said overcast with possible rain so of course it was hot and sunny. We wanted to stop and take a break halfway, but I got 4 mosquito bites right away so we didn’t, which I was bitter at, but we managed to finish…I won’t say strong, but finish. We stopped at the QT for a “treat” of Gatorade. When did they get rid of G2? I tried a Gatorade zero which was fine, I guess this is the G2 replacement? Is this like Coke zero rather than diet coke?
Embarrassing moments so far today: trying to make an online reservation for a hotel on August 1 and realizing you inadvertently made it for July 1 when they call you to ask about it. Luckily it was easily solved, but oops, that’s a big difference between tomorrow night and a month from now. Sigh. Just when you think you are getting better at planning, you remember that you recently heard that your brain peaked at 25 and was downhill from there. And then you remember that time you forgot that you turned 26 and your sister corrected you when you were telling people that you were 25, and yes, your brain was already going downhill. On that note! Have a great week.
We decided to eat at the Hotel restaurant. We were staying at the Sylvia Hotel , and the hotel restaurant was highly rated, and I will tell you, for good reason. The food was terrific for breakfast.
It looks like Louie had oatmeal and I had avocado toast with a poached egg on it? Or maybe it was a benedict of a sort. Anyway, the view overlooked English Bay, and we enjoyed drinking coffee and trying to wake up. It was a bit rainy, which we weren’t as excited about, because we were going to be picked up to go for a hike.
I wanted to make sure we got out of Vancouver into the woods and such as well, so we made plans to go hiking in Lynn Canyon with a guide. The guide was necessary for transportation, because it just made everything much easier. Adrian picked us up and there was another couple in the van already, and it turned out they were ALSO from the St Louis area, which was hilarious and very coincidental.
Anyway, he drove us about 40 minute outside of Vancouver and we parked and got started hiking at Lynn Canyon Park. It was a nice day except that it was raining lightly. Ha. Well, as they say in Norway, no bad weather, only bad clothes.
The hike was gorgeous. The woods were lush and green, and the rain made the water run faster and all the waterfalls we saw were better because of it.
We walked over Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge, a very cool bridge.
Then we walked down to the River we had been over.
It ended up being a pretty brisk hike, lots of stairs and elevation changes, raining the whole time, about 6 miles? We loved the hike.
After we got back, we decided it was a good day to get ramen. Louie had seen a ramen place that always had a long line, so we wanted to try it, but then we decided not to wait in line and instead go to a nearby place with almost as good of a rating online, and it was amazingly delicious. I recommend Horin Ramen! and if you go, also get the dumplings. We saw them on the table next to us and ordered them because the people next to us had them and they looked amazing. They were.
After that, we were exhausted. We walked back to the hotel and relaxed and cleaned up. We didn’t do much that was exciting until close to dinner again, when we went out walking again to meet up for dinner. We met our friends Ben and Roz for a cocktail at their hotel before dinner at Fanny Bay Oyster Bar and had some great seafood, including oysters (of course). It was fun to catch up and chat about our respective days and share good food and drinks. We were exhausted by the end of the day and took an uber home.
Day 4: May 20
This was the last full day in Vancouver before the cruise. Louie was started to get nervous about cruising and wishing we were just staying in Vancouver, I think–he loved Vancouver and was worried he would hate cruising and regret having left Vancouver. I was also loving Vancouver but knew I would also love the cruise, so it was a win-win.
We ate at the Sylvia’s restaurant again, because I wanted to try something more, and it was convenient.
Plus look at that. Eggs benedict with smoked salmon. Yum. I regret nothing.
Louie went all out to try to recoup all the calories we had been burning walking all over the city. He probably didn’t manage to eat all of that though.
After breakfast we took an uber out to the University of British Columbia. My main goal for the day was to visit the Museum of Anthropology, but we decided to first see the Botanical Gardens at the University, since it wasn’t raining yet. Spoiler: it kept not raining all day until the evening, which was very nice.
First we visited the Treetop Walk in the UBC (University Botanical Gardens).
I recommend doing the Treetop Walk. It’s an extra fee, but super fun. And I do have a fear of heights, but really more of a fear of falling, and I was fine.
And then we just wandered around looking at flowers and such. This was one of the first times (and rare times) I had some mosquito issues on this trip, thankfully!
The rhododendrons were out of control in Vancouver.
After the UBC, we walked to the Japanese Garden, which was near the Museum we wanted to get to. We had wanted to buy tickets to both at once, but the woman at UBC suggested we could buy just for UBC and then add on at the Japanese Garden and get the same price, but that ended up not being true, so if you are definitely doing both, buy them together.
It was a lovely garden, but we didn’t spend much time there.
We went to the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) next. We wanted some coffee and a snack first, but luckily they had a small cafe. We got a bannock and a pastry and split those. A bannock is a Native American food that is much like a scone, and we had it with butter and jam.
This museum was really wonderful. The main room has giant totem poles as well as many other examples of indigenous peoples’ artifacts and art.
The other main exhibition is artifacts from around the world and it is really amazing how much they have. In addition to the items on display there are drawers and drawers of artifacts that you can pull out to look at. I think you could spend months there looking at things.
We didn’t, however. We spend a few hours, maybe? And then headed out the back. There were some things out back too, that looked as if they were still under construction. The museum recently reopened after being closed for a few years, so I assume the back is still being worked on.
Louie found a path down to the beach though, so we thought that would fun to traverse. It looked like you could go down to the beach and then walk along it for awhile and then rejoin the city again.
There were 490 stairs down to the beach, which was actually a nude beach called Wreck Beach. It was a bit cold for that though, I think, and we didn’t see anyone. Not that we were looking. We opted to stay clothed.
If you headed back up the stairs, which I didn’t want to do, you had to put your clothes back on. Not optional.
Anyway, we got to the bottom, and followed a little trail, which…abruptly ended and there was no trail, just a rocky beach. Not small pebbles, and not large rocks, but the worst kind, medium rocks that are super annoying and hard to walk on. So we had a choice, walk up 490 steps, or forge ahead. I may have regretted this choice later, but I chose forge ahead, so we did.
Anyway, so we finally made it. Hiked about a mile on the most annoying rocky beach ever, and finally made it to the next beach access area, where we called an uber and got a ride to the city. We were near where we wanted to be for dinner and decided it didn’t make sense to go back to the hotel and then come back for dinner, so we went for coffee and a snack instead, and that’s when it started raining. Boo!
But we had a really good pastry, and sat and enjoyed some coffee for awhile. Then we went to a thrift store because Louie was only wearing a t-shirt and he wanted to buy a button down for dinner, ha! He found something fun, and after we walked about a little bit more, it was pretty much time for our last dinner.
We met our friends at a Thai place, Maenam, that does a fixed price dinner for the table. You choose from a few options, and everything is served family style. We enjoyed the food quite a lot, but the one complaint we had was that at first everything was coursed out very nicely, but then at one point salad and all the mains came out at the same time and it was hard to figure out what you had tried or not. Anyway, the food was tasty. At the end of dinner, we went our separate ways again, since our hotels were not nearby. We decided to have a drink at our hotel bar before bed since we hadn’t managed to do that yet, so we stayed up just a little bit longer!
Day 5: May 21: Last Morning in Vancouver
Louie woke up around 5:30 am, I believe, and ended up going out to walk around early. I slept until 7:30 or 8. Then we went down for breakfast again, and I had another eggs benedict.
After breakfast, we went to walk about Stanley Park before we had to check out of our hotel.
It was a beautiful day! English Bay was gorgeous.
We found the Lost Lagoon!
It was a really lovely morning, just wandering around looking at stuff, watching ducks and geese. There was a small class of kids on a field trip, all wearing yellow safety vests, rolling around on the ground on occasion, and we were getting a kick out of them. Canada is pretty cool. We had nothing but great interactions with people in Canada, and loved the food, the scenery, and everything!
And then it was time to check out of the hotel. We had a noon checkout, so we got everything packed up, checked out and took an uber to the port. And that’s where I’ll leave you today! Next post: the Zaandam!!
Day 1, May 17: The day after the tornado, we were leaving for a trip to Vancouver and then a cruise to Alaska. And by the day after the tornado, I mean, our flight was at 6 am, and it was an international flight, so they always say, oh get there 3 hours ahead of time. Of course, then everybody says, oh, you don’t need to do that, and “it’s just Canada” and “that’s really early” so we really had no idea what to do. We decided to compromise and plan to arrive at the airport two hours ahead of time, which was likely entirely too early, but Louie and I are THOSE people who would rather be early to the airport than late. Also we would be able to get coffee and charge our phones there anyway, because we had no power.
So let me set the scene. No power. Thankfully we had water. Oh, and the main access to our street was blocked by a tree, so how would we get picked up by a Lyft/Uber? Which we needed to be picked up around 3:45 am? I decided our best bet would be to meet them at the end of the block by a main street instead, and go from there. Frankly, on the best of days some drivers can’t even find the house, so I didn’t want to tell them how to find it by using an alley and dodging trees! But the driver called and he insisted he would come and get us, and he did find the house. It was surreal leaving. It was pitch black and we were indeed dodging trees and wreckage, and then…it was absolutely normal within a few blocks, nothing had happened at all.
Anyway, we got to the airport, drank our coffee, and flew to Vancouver via Minneapolis. We took the Sky Train from the airport to Downtown and were planning to walk from the stop to our hotel, but first we were starving and realized a restaurant I had noted on the map as a good option was right there, so we ate first. It was a terrific vegan restaurant called Meet in Yaletown and I think everybody would like it, but those that eat plant based would especially love it.
I forget exactly what this was called, but it was potato patties with vegan caviar on top, and we split it for an appetizer.
It was lightly raining as we walked to the hotel. It was a fairly long walk, but we thought it was nice to walk anyway, and enjoyed looking around. Finally we made it to our destination and home for the next four nights, the Sylvia Hotel.
It is a historic hotel with ivy growing up the walls. It was one of the best deals I could find and still be in the downtown area. We were right by English Bay Beach.
We cleaned up and relaxed a bit, and then went out to explore.
It was important for Louie and I to get accustomed to our usual vacation selfie pose–we had walked up Denman Street from English Bay and I think this is overlooking Vancouver Harbour.
And we changed direction so you can see the buildings now.
The Olympic torch from the Vancouver Olympics in 2010! There was a seagull on top so I guess it is a nice place to have a nest now.
We had a reservation for a sushi dinner at 6 pm so we were just wandering around getting the sense of the city and working up an appetite. It kept raining off and on, but never too much. Some of the streets were just full of restaurants, we were blown away by how many and how many nationalities were represented. I think you could eat at a different restaurant every day for years!
This building was bigger on top!
We had dinner at Sushi Bar Maumi, which was a great experience. The reservation was for 6 pm and they said they would unlock the doors at 5:45 and we should arrive 10 minutes early. We ended up being there a little early, so we waited outside, and at 5:45 on the dot we heard the doors unlock! We went in and got seated at the bar: everybody was seated around the bar, and we all ate the same thing, all in turn. The man you see above made all the dishes in front and his wife helped out with everything else, and it is just the two of them that run the place, one seating a night. We had a great time and really enjoyed ourselves.
After dinner, I was completely exhausted, between the time change and the early flight, so we walked home and I fell asleep pretty much right away.
Day 2, May 18: I thought it would be fun to do a bike tour to get a good overview of the city, so I booked a tour with a guide through Airbnb. His name was Ian and he came highly recommended. We took an uber to the meeting spot, which was near a bakery called Terra Breads, so we ate breakfast there first.
The rain had stopped, so this is another view of the hotel, while we were waiting for the Lyft/Uber.
We met the guide near this giant bird statue. It may be hard to know how large it is, but trust me. Large.
It was a small group of us on the tour, just 5 and the guide, which was a good number: small enough to easily stay together, but large enough not to feel awkward. And the weather was gorgeous, not rainy at all like the day before! Off we went.
Ian immediately showed himself to be a great guide and good with bikes as well. He got us set up well, and did a great job helping us feel comfortable, giving us great information about Vancouver, and having a nice mix of riding and stopping. I was able to take plenty of pictures along the way but still we felt like we did plenty of riding. It also helps that Vancouver is a terrific biking city with dedicated bike lanes!
We saw the skinniest building in the world? Or at least one of, and certainly very skinny. It’s just that black part, and is an insurance company. The insurance company has another building nearby where they do more of their business.
The famous Gastown clock. We didn’t see it go off on the hour, but we did catch it on the 45 minutes. It was very exciting. Very.
And then we headed into Stanley Park, which Ian said was bigger than Central Park! It seemed to not be bigger than Forest Park, though I believe it is a bit wilder and I hate to say it, prettier and certainly has more bodies of water around it.
Gotta have our biking pictures! I wore that black zip up hoodie practically everyday of the trip–it was super versatile and I loved it. It was black, wool, had zip up pockets AND thumb holes.
The camera keeps getting further away!
You can see the Lions Gate Bridge. Spoiler alert: later in the trip we will go under this bridge on our cruise ship.
This was some of the “wild” part. If you don’t know, Vancouver is in a temperate rain forest climate, which basically means it is super green with lots of plants and ferns and mosses. I was blown away by how lush and well, green, everything was. We had to walk our bikes on this path a little ways.
We got to this beautiful lagoon with some dams built by beavers. At one point we started biking again and I ALMOST crashed into Louie but I did not. But I almost did.
This is a stump from when they did logging back in the day. You can’t really tell from the picture but it was gigantic. When you hear about “old growth” wood, it’s really something to see what they mean by that. And to imagine how people would cut these trees down using hand saws, and then roll them out without using machinery.
We continued on our bike tour around Stanley Park, past English Bay Beach and the Stanley Hotel (hi hotel!) and then we got onto a ferry over to Granville Island.
Technically it was an aquabus.
It was a quick trip across the water and then we had probably our most dangerous bit of biking because it was Sunday afternoon on Granville Island and it was wall to wall people and cars. It was a bit much for me! Too many people and cars. We lived, and we made it to a lovely bike path and then back around to Terra Breads to finish our tour. Overall we loved the tour and we would definitely recommend it to anyway who wanted to learn more about Vancouver and do some biking while they were at it.
After the tour, we got some sustenance at Terra Bakery again (ha!) and then ended up deciding to go back to Meet at Yaletown for lunch again. I was feeling hot and thirsty and we had seen quite a few things on the menu the day before that we wanted to try, so another visit seemed like a good idea. After lunch, we walked back to the hotel to relax.
Our friends Ben and Roz got into Vancouver and were meeting us for dinner this night. We had been texting, but it seemed to make sense just to meet for dinner. They were going on the cruise with us, but they were staying at a different hotel which wasn’t really near ours.
Louie and I walked around the water a bit before dinner, just enjoying the air. We thought it would be easy to get an uber, but it ended up being kind of annoying, but we managed finally. We were going to Kissa Tanto for dinner, which is a restaurant with a Michelin Star, the only one I have ever been to. We had a great time, enjoyed some lovely food, especially this pasta, which I didn’t photograph well, but I did propose marriage to.
It was also great fun to catch up with Ben and Roz: we actually hadn’t seen them in St Louis for awhile due to our busy schedules (the end of the year was insane, as you may know) so we were excited to spend more time together.
Kissa Tanto was right across the street from the Dollar Meat Store, which made me a little nervous with the title. Should meat cost a dollar? What is the quality of that meat?
That’s where I will leave off today. Next: more Vancouver!
Back in early summer, I saw an advertisement for an event run by Terrain Magazine called the MO70, a Two-Day Pedal and Paddle Adventure. Louie had just been talking about how he wanted to bike more and we had also been talking about how we didn’t have any camping planned, so signing up seemed like a great idea.
Now, I’m a musician, as you know. So taking a weekend away can be tricky: I had to turn down a variety of things, but I really wanted to do this event so it was worth it. We started doing longer rides in the summer, with our longest topping out at 25 miles. We would have liked to have done more, but if you recall, my September was the busiest ever (I don’t know if I’m exaggerating or not, but seriously, everybody is saying that, what is going on) and biking long distances was not possible. We got one more longer ride in the weekend before the trip and that was it.
So, we loaded up the car the day before: light camping gear, bikes, overnight bags, etc, and bright and early on Saturday morning we drove an hour to Washington, Missouri to meet the tour. The plan was to bike on the Katy Trail (mostly) from Washington to Hermann, to camp overnight in Hermann, and then get into canoes from Big Muddy Adventures and canoe back down river to Washington on Sunday.
We had our tent, two sleeping bags/pads/pillows, and each a backpack with items to wear, toiletries, and headlamps. We got new bags for the bag of our bikes which you can see in the photo above, and that was useful for keeping important stuff we would want for the day: OTC meds such as advil and pepto bismal, sunscreen, wallets, etc. We debated rain gear but there was a 0 percent chance across the weekend so we decided to risk it and that was fine.
Our gear was loaded onto a shuttle and we would see it later that day. Otherwise, they had beer and snacks and other cold drinks for us along the way, and some people started on the beer right away (fun for them I suppose but I cannot drink in the morning and function over the day).
We set off as a group then: it was a few miles on roads to get from Washington to the Katy Trail, first up to a bridge over the Missouri and then a bit on a gravel road that was a little less fun, and then to the Katy. The group stopped a few times along the way to let everybody catch up.
The ride was pretty easy at first, of course. The bridge was fun to bike over, and it was really nice once we got to the Katy. I had been thinking we were biking a part of the trail we had never been on, but then we stopped for our first break in Dutzow, where we had been before.
They had various drinks to choose from (the shuttle brought coolers along) and I enjoyed a cold gatorade and a snack. We continued on then, mostly in a large group, though a bit spread out.
Our next stop was Marthasville, for another quick snack/bathroom break as needed. And then at Peers, and then finally lunch at Treloar.
They brought sandwiches we had preordered (from a few choices) from the Gramophone, and we enjoyed those with cold drinks, chips, and cookies. It was a nice break! We felt like the ride was easy so far with all the stops and it was a nice day.
The rest of the day was much harder, as you might imagine! First off, there weren’t any more planned stops between Treloar and McKittrick, and I had overhead them saying it was about 10 miles, but no, it was about 15. We got much more spread out and it got hotter (almost 90!) though thankfully minus the summer humidity.
But we persevered and just made a few stops along the way. We chatted with some other people, had a nice time, struggled a bit, and finally got to McKittrick where I had been dreaming of a nice cold beverage from the cooler…only to find out that the coolers were gone because the shuttle had had to go pick somebody up. NOOOOOOOO!!
So we had to continue a few more miles from McKittrick into Hermann. This meant getting off the Katy again and going a few miles on a highway, over a bridge, and then downhill mostly into the campground. This was hard, especially the bridge. I was exhausted and there was a big uphill to get to it (or it felt like a big uphill, who knows), but once we crested that, it was fine. We were riding with a small group still, and we were so happy to see the shuttles when we got into the Hermann City campground.
They were out of gatorade, sadly, but I had a sprite and a cold water and it was glorious! According to my phone app, we had biked 38 miles that day.
So then we grabbed our camping gear and set up our tent in the middle of a field. We took showers, and then just hung out the rest of the day. They provided a nice dinner of bratwursts, sauerkraut, potato salad, etc. (notice an Oktoberfest theme?) as well as plenty of drinks (and I did enjoy a couple of beers in the evening).
For some reason I didn’t get a picture of our tent! I usually do that every time we camp, but I didn’t do it this trip.
We enjoyed hanging around the fire and chatting with a variety of people. And then by around 9 I was utterly exhausted and turned in early!
You’d think I would have slept well, but no. I woke up a bunch, and tossed and turned all night. So did most people we talked to. I suppose it was the new place, the fact that we were just sleeping on thermarests, it was a little warm at first, and then the camping area was really light, tons of streetlights around.
So when morning came, it was both too soon and also a relief, ha! We packed up quickly and then enjoyed some coffee (though a dangerously small amount for the group) and breakfast burritos. Then we all biked to the riverfront to board the canoes.
It was a lovely morning: not too warm, just comfortable for me in leggins and short sleeves, and you can see we had large canoes. We paddled for several hours and then stopped at the Paddlestop Brewery in New Haven for a barbecue lunch. Louie and I split a beer there as well: it was a fun little place!
And then we continued paddling after lunch until we finally got back to the waterfront park in Washington where we started. We did enjoy the canoe, but we were pretty tired of paddling by the end–I think the morning was more fun than the afternoon, but the scenery was lovely, and it wasn’t too hard to be with a big group like that.
We got the canoes out of the water, retrieved our gear and bikes, loaded up the car and said our goodbyes. It was a super fun trip and we would be happy to do it again! It was well organized and well run, and we enjoyed the food. We always felt safe and well taken care of, and we enjoyed meeting new people and chatting with them.
Day 16: We decided to have a lazy morning and sleep in a bit. It was nice. We had a bike tour booked for 2 pm, and needed to take a train to it, so we hung around the apartment/Airbnb until it was time for a late breakfast/lunch. We went to a place called Cafe Cafferino Oba that served coffee and breakfast, which ended up being greek food. We both had some good eggs, veggies, bread, yogurt, etc, with coffee.
Our guide had given us specific instructions on what train to take to meet him, so we walked to Central Station, and found a train to board. It was pretty easy.
And then it was a short walk from there to the meeting place.
I’d booked a day trip with biking to Seurasaari, a picnic, and a sauna. It looked like a lot of fun and actually ended up being our favorite thing!
We met the guide, Luca, at a sort of garage where he kept the bikes and gear. I had asked about riding an ebike instead so I got one of those, and Louie and Barbara, the only other person on our tour, got regular bikes. We headed out towards Seurasaari, which is an open air museum outside of Helsinki, on an island.
We were very visible with our helmet covers! I loved riding the ebike: it was like riding a regular bike but with help on the hills, so I could go just as fast uphill as on a flat ride.
When we got to Seurasaari, we had to park our bikes and walk as the island doesn’t allow bikes. We did a quick walk through, looking at the outside of some buildings while Luca talked about the history and culture of Finland.
We ended up at a large picnic area with a grill, and Luca started a fire (with wood that you could just use) and we helped prepared a vegan Finnish lunch, with various appetizers he had made, and vegan reindeer sausages.
The food was delicious: some sort of vegan cheese dip, pate, gazpacho, the vegan reindeer sausages, grilled onions, blueberry drink, and more. After eating more than we probably even wanted, we finished walking around the island, and then headed to the next stop: sauna.
We had talked as a group about the various kinds of saunas that we could try and collectively chose what Luca called the “hippie sauna” which was a sauna on the edge of the Baltic Sea, where you could get in the sauna and then jump in the sea. Oh, and most people would be completely nude.
It was called Sompasauna, there would be no pictures, and yes, most people were nude. You quickly learned that nobody cared and just to keep your eyes down, and that WOW it was amazing getting really hot and sweaty in a wooden cabin and then jumping into the freezing sea was amazing once you were really hot! I could have stayed there longer, but we had to get back as our time was almost up, so we left after probably an hour or more. (I didn’t have my watch on during this part).
Anyway, we biked back to where we started (I was really glad I had my ebike as I kept up really easily!) and then said our goodbyes. It was a really terrific day, the sauna was absolutely amazing (I just loved the feeling of floating in the Baltic Sea, so much!) and we had a terrific time. One regret is not getting to spend more time really exploring Seurasaari, but we did see plenty of open air museums on this trip, so it really wasn’t a huge loss, haha.
We weren’t really hungry for dinner as the lunch had been quite late, so after we got back to Helsinki we went to a place called the Beer House, and ended up having a few snacks there like reindeer jerky and cauliflower wings. We also ended up trying Taco Bell that evening: Leslie had teased me that I should try a bean burrito there, and I did, though it wasn’t really a bean burrito but was a “vegan burrito” instead. Louie and I split it back at the apartment and it was nice and hit the spot.
Day 17: Suomenlinna
We decided to go to the fortress of Suomenlinna on our last full day in Helsinki. We didn’t get the earliest of starts again, but we did manage breakfast rather than lunch, ha! We went to Cafe Ekbert and had some delicious pastries and cappuccinos.
We had a cinnamon bun, an almond croissant, and a little sandwich with cheese and eggs and sauce.
We took the ferry to Suomenlinna then: you catch it at Market Square down by the water (obviously). You pay using the HSL app, and the ferry fits a decent amount of people plus up to two cars/small trucks.
We walked around the island then, using some information from Rick Steves, but also just wandering and seeing what looked interesting.
After a few hours, we took the ferry back and continued wandering. We enjoyed a salmon pie and a little pastry with grits on it (unsure of the name) overlooking the water.
We looked at the map and tried to walk through some parts of Helsinki that we hadn’t been to before.
We had one more concert to attend that evening, a staged opera by Mussourgsky called Khovanshchina conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. We had seats behind the orchestra. The music was beautiful and well played, but we were exhausted and just couldn’t seem to follow the plot, and I convinced Louie to bail at intermission rather that stay to the bitter end.
If we had stayed until the end, it would have been too late to have a nice dinner, but of course, we felt conflicted (me less so I really thought I would simply fall asleep if we stayed, ha!) So left and went to search for dinner. The hall was amazing though, the pictures are crazy, aren’t they?
We found a place that served Finnish food and stopped by, they could serve us! Ravintola Skörd, not far from our airbnb. They offered a 4 or 6 course menu, we chose the 4 and split up the choices so that we could taste all the foods. It was another great meal! The trick was that all of the foods were from Finland, in fact, everything except salt, the server said. She was terrific as well, nice and friendly and funny, and a great server. We loved the meal, and enjoyed some Finnish wines made from berries, but they weren’t sweet like you might think, they were dry even.Â
After dinner we just walked back to the apartment.
Day 18: We had to check out by around noon as well as leave around then get to the airport. We went to the original cafe we had found on the first day for coffee and pulla, Kulhma Kahvila 48, and then just walked around for an hour or two, figuring we would be sitting plenty in the future!
And then we caught the tram from our airbnb to Central Station, and caught a train to the airport. One thing I possibly regretted is that we didn’t have seats together on the flight: Finnair makes you pay extra for seat choice and I had figured they would put us together. I had figured wrong. We both had aisle seats near each other, but neither of our seat mates would swap. It was fine though, we just enjoyed movies and read of course, but it would have nicer together. Next time I suppose I’ll just shell out for the extra leg room both ways.
We got home exhausted but uneventfully. Our global entry worked great, though since we checked a bag we lost time waiting on it, but it wasn’t an issue as we had a long connection in Chicago.
We ended up with quite a lot of “loot” from the trip: chocolates and such. And Salty licorice for Louie. We’ve been slowly making our way through it.
My favorite so far was the Karl Fazer chocolate with lemon!
Anyway, overall we had a great trip, it was seriously fantastic and amazing. Having had some time to reflect, there were minor things we would do differently but nothing major. I thought we stayed in great places, the itinerary was good if exhausting, the excursions added great value to our vacation, and we just really enjoyed ourselves. I highly recommend any of the cities we visited and would be happy to share even more information with you, so feel free to reach out with questions.
We decided to take an weekend trip to Tallinn, Estonia, just across the Gulf of Finland from Helsinki. It ended up making the most sense to keep our airbnb in Helsinki and just double book accommodation for one night, and then we didn’t have to check out/check in anywhere and we could travel exceedingly light.
We woke up very early after our fantastic evening meal at Grön, grabbed our backpacks, had a quick cup of coffee and caught the tram to the ferry terminal. Did I mention how amazing it was that there was a tram stop right outside of the airbnb we stayed at? It was a ten minute ride to the terminal and we got there around 6:30 am for our 7:30 am ferry. We didn’t have to wait long until boarding began.
The ferry wasn’t as large or fancy as the one from Stockholm to Turku, but it was still perfectly nice. We quickly grabbed some comfortable enough looking seats by a window and then settled in for the two hour boat ride.
We got some breakfast, coffee (which was pretty terrible!) and just relaxed for the ride. We were both tired but excited to see a new country!
The ferry landed at 9:30 am and we headed into the old town, just a 10 minute walk from the terminal. Old Town Tallinn is one of the best preserved and most intact medieval towns in existence today. The city itself is the capital of Estonia, and has a fascinating history–read a bit of it on Wikipedia if you like!
We arrived earlier than the cruise ship crowds, so we walked through the town a bit without all the crowds–we were headed to drop our bags off at our hotel and then to meet a bike tour to, oddly enough, get OUT of the city first and get some biking in and learn a bit about Estonia from a guide.
In Estonia they speak, obviously, Estonian. Many people we interacted with spoke excellent English as well, lucky for us! They use the Euro, just like Finland, though things were cheaper, especially outside of the Old Town (which is super touristy and has the corresponding prices, though it is amazing and beautiful and worth seeing!). Estonia is the first country I have been to that used to be part of the Soviet Union.
We started the bike tour near one the town walls. Back then towns had really high walls to keep out intruders. It sometimes worked too.
Our guide was named Marcus and was a young Estonian man. He was very knowledgeable and friendly, and did a good job. We learned many things about Tallinn and Estonia from him, most especially that Estonians really hate Russia and Putin. They are (understandably) still mad about having been part of the USSR and they are worried about the future, and they really value their independence.
We biked outside of the Olde town, mostly along the sea, which was a lovely route. We visited the Olympic Stadium from the 1980 Moscow Olympics, built by the Soviets and now crumbling and overgrown. We learned that it cannot be torn down because it is “historical” but yet the government won’t approve the money for renovations.
Next we biked to an area with shops, where Marcus told us the Finns would take the ferry over and fill up their trunks with cheap booze to take back. It seems that Estonians think Finns look down on them (and Finns think Swedes look down on them!)–though Marcus was clear to point out he liked the Finnish people he knew, so it was more of a country stereotype than a real feeling of animosity.
We enjoyed views looking back at Tallinn, as the road had curved around.
Next we biked to Kadriog Park, which was built by Peter the Great. It is really beautiful, though hard to get a photo without people in it! I guess we were all saying that, haha.
After that, we biked back to the place we started. It was a nice bike trip, though not exceptional. I was glad we did it for the opportunity to learn more from a native Estonian and to get outside of the old town a bit, but it wasn’t a “must do”.
We were starving then, and had trouble deciding where to eat that wasn’t too touristy or too crowded…we ended up at an Indian Restaurant with nice patio seating called Elevant Resto, and enjoyed some nice Indian food (not so different than what we get here).
After lunch we walked around the Old Town more, just wandering and taking pictures and looking at things.
We headed back to the hotel then. We were staying one night at the Merchant’s House Hotel, and it seemed like a nice place. They had a sauna as well, and we signed up to use it for an hour (included with the stay).
The courtyard view from outside our room.
I ended up not staying in the sauna very long at all: I probably did things all wrong, I was already feeling tired and head-ache-y and then I didn’t know what to do and ended up sitting up high away from the steam and immediately felt not good, so I left Louie to it on his own (he didn’t mind) but I learned I should sat lower (duh, heat rises!). (Spoiler alert, we will have another sauna experience that is better). Anyway, I went back to the room to clean up and relax, I think I took a nap as well. Louie came back an hour later having enjoyed himself thoroughly so it all worked out, though I felt like a sauna failure.
We were going to a short opera next, called the Emperor of Atlantis, put on by the Estonian National Opera. We had to walk about 15-20 minutes to the venue, which was in the Telliskivi Creative City part of Tallinn. It was a really nice walk.
It was confusing when we arrived, because the opera apparently started in the main lobby, so we got drinks (very inexpensive, like $5 for a glass of wine) and a snack (olives in a jar!) and sat at a table. The show began with live music and singing in German, and we had no idea what was going on–I had verified before purchasing tickets that there would be English subtitles, but for the pre-show there was nothing. However it was nice, and then we all walked into the main hall, where the rest of the orchestra was set up and the opera began.
Again, I’ll refer you to Wikipedia for more information, but the opera was fascinating and intense. It was written in a concentration camp and definitely was making fun of Hitler and it was just amazing and so upsetting to think of. Upsetting being not even the right word to describe the despair I sometimes feel thinking of how much death the Nazis caused and how much art and music was STILL being made, even while people were being killed. Human beings are amazing and human beings are absolutely horrific.
We would have gone again to catch things we missed, but we weren’t staying in Tallinn another night. But I am so happy we caught the show!
After that, we had 9 pm reservations at Rataskaevu 16, a highly rated restaurant in Tallinn (very near our hotel too).
I was quite surprised when I used the bathroom to see there was a window to the earth below!
Our dinner was fantastic and the perfect end to a very long and exciting day. After dinner we were exhausted and slept well.
Day 15:
We had planned to get up early to “beat the crowds” and do Rick Steves’s walking tour, but we were too tired. We did get up early enough to get the tour in before check out, but not to really beat the crowds.
First, hotel breakfast. It was in the basement of the hotel, a fascinating almost dungeon like place. They had a cold buffet and you could order hot foods as well: I was happy with the cold stuff.
The walking tour covered the lower old town where we were staying and headed up into the upper old town as well. There was so much to explore, but we did hit the highlights.
We saw the Russian Orthodox Church, some important government buildings, and had a great overlook of the lower old town. It was a lovely morning to walk around, and it wasn’t overly crowded in any case. After that, we checked out of the hotel (stored our bags there though) and caught a Bolt (Estonian’s version of Uber) to the Estonian Open Air Museum, which was a few miles out of town. Bolt is the only company that can drive into the Old Town, and they have a few places set for pick up and drop off, one was the well near the hotel (and outside of last night’s restaurant.)
The drive to the museum took us through what I would consider the more “normal” parts of Tallinn, which just looked like you would think a city where people lived and worked would look like. The driver was very quiet, perhaps he didn’t speak English or didn’t speak well, but he got us where we needed to go.
Like all of the open air museums we’d seen, there was more than we could take in in an afternoon, but we had a terrific time learning about the history of Estonia, how people lived, and enjoying the outdoors. The thatched roofs were a highlight and were truly fascinating.
We had lunch at their cafe which offered “authentic Estonian food”.
Brown bread, soup, potatoes, and something else…I sadly can’t recall.
Mashed potatoes with groat and pickles.
After eating, more exploring!
As you can see, there were a wide variety of homes and variety of eras. Some were more decorated inside, others had different displays inside. Some had people in them to answer questions, though we did run into some language barriers.
We met this cat: he seemed friendly and Louie was petting him but then he scratched Louie! We learned later his name was Vasso and we bought a magnet with a picture of him on it, haha.
One of the bathrooms had a lot of information about bathroom use historically, which was super interesting.
We really enjoyed the afternoon at the Museum, and not pictured was an apartment building with various apartments showing the way people lived during the Soviet era. I just didn’t get good pictures of it, not that you couldn’t take pictures.
Anyway, we finally left, took a Bolt back to the hotel and then walked down to the terminal to catch our ferry back to Helsinki.
We had the “Delight Buffet” for dinner, which was a nice buffet with unlimited food and drink. They had wine or beer you could serve yourself–the choices were beer, white wine, or red wine! As well as a nice variety of fish, cooked entrees including meatballs, salad bar, breads, vegetarian caviar (did you even know that is a thing? yes, it is!), and more. We enjoyed a table right by a window as well, and spent most of the time there, even after we finished eating.
We landed in Helsinki around 9:30 pm, and squeezed into a tram to get back to the Airbnb. I mean really squeezed: more and more people kept getting on and it really seemed like nobody else would fit and then more people did! We luckily were near a door as we got off the tram before most people (they were likely mostly going to Central Station which was a few stops further.) We got back to the Airbnb without incident, and felt like we were arriving home!
