Visitor Centre Suomenlinna
by Lunaina
When you make a visit to Suomenlinna go to the visitor centre. The people here can help you in finding your way on the islands, the centre also has many brochures, so lots of information. The visitor centre also has good museum, the Suomenlinna museum. If you take the JT Line ferry, you arrive on the visitor centre quay, you arrive in the middle of Suomenlinna, so you can choose what to visit first, the islands are all easily accessible and walkable... Suomenlinna and Seurasaari, I miss the nature, the peace, the beautiful sights, water and flowers everywhere!!!
Helsinki Card
by brazwhazz
Even if you intend on doing only a moderate amount of sightseeing, the Helsinki Card can come in quite handy. It entitles you to free use of public transit (buses, trams, metro and local trains), free entry in most museums and discounts on tours and in certain restaurants.
The card was particularly useful on our day trip to Suomenlinna, since the cost of taking the ferry there and back and visiting all of the fortress sites can cost almost as much as the 24-hour card. Cards for 48 and 72 hours can also be purchased.
City Tours
by elcolibri
You can do city tours by bus and boat or walking. By bus you can select audio city tour in 11 languages and by boat in english, german, sweddish and finnish. But if you prefer you can take a guided walking tour in the historical centre of Helsinki, but I prefer do it myself with the free guide of the Tourism Office (Six routes in six languages) because I can visit all the monuments, museums and interesting places of the city and discover its cozy place like this in the picture.
go to the Kaivopuisto park in...
by puuhapete
go to the Kaivopuisto park in summer. It's a great place (besides Esplanadi park) to watch people, sunbath, go for a coffee or maybe rent rollerscates. the summer of Helsinki. After the long winter all places are crowded (if it's a sunny day), and for the 3 summer months people really live.
go to Kallio, an area 15 min...
by TomTomi
go to Kallio, an area 15 min walk north east of the main train station, downtown Helsinki. Formerly a working class area - today inhabited by students, artists, workers and drunks. But most importantly: the bar density is the greatest in Helsinki and all of Finland. And those bars are CHEAP! Naturally, there are some 'upscale' bars aswell, but as a rule you can walk through happy hours from 9am forward and get beer for 2€, (4-6€ for beer downtown). You'll find lots of youths there as 60% of the residents are between 20-24 years old.
More than that, there isn't much to see in Kallio, except the bars. But it is a very important part of Helsinki's recent history. It is foremostly the experience of going there - to see the part of Helsinki, normally not seen by tourists. If you see a tourist there, he is either lost, or then he saw this same site;)! I reckon that tourism is basically all about seeing the locals, not other tourists, in their daily routines.
When bar hopping in Kallio, remember this, now this is very IMPORTANT: in cheap places it's customary to bring back your glass to the bar tender for a re-fill. If you neglect this, you'll get thrown out in the "worst" places:)
Bookmark this site. It's a street locator, very accurate! You can use it to locate some of the adresses listed below. The map on the left shows the Kallio area. Kluuvi is the downtown area of Helsinki.
http://kartta.hel.fi/kktesti/osoitehakuen/defaultIE_NS Pub crawls in Kallio are becoming more and more (in)famous. There are websites dedicated to this, books written and it's getting common for downtown residents to go to Kallio as "tourists". But remember, Kallio is THE place to be yourself, what ever and who ever you are. And why not, everybody else sure are, and they don't give a damn about you unless you want them to!
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Enso-Gutzeit HQ building designed by Alvar Aalto
Interior (3)
The 69 eyes acoustic at Virgin oil
The soup stand
