Vallisaari

Hello people!

I'm back, and as you can see Julius and I are enjoying the Finnish summer.

You may remember my posts (here and here) from last year about what to do in Helsinki in the summer. Well, here's another thing you can do: Visit the island of Vallisaari. If you've been to Helsinki you've probably heard of Suomenlinna (Sveaborg). But just in case you haven't: it's a sea fortress located at the entrance to Helsinki harbour and it's so famous that it's become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here's a picture:

Anyway, that's enough about Suomenlinna, I'll make another post about that sometime in the future. But for now, back to Vallisaari or Skanslandet as it's know in Swedish. The name roughly translates as Fortification Island, and it's an island located next to Suomenlinna and as the name suggests it once formed part of the defence of Helsinki. In fact it was used by the Finnish Defence Forces until 2012. With the exception of a radar station in operation during the second world war it was only really used for weapons and munitions storage, though. In 2016 it was opened to the public and now you can get there by boat from the Market Square in the centre of Helsinki. Here's me getting on the boat:

And here I am enjoying the ride and the sunshine. The trip takes about 15-20 minutes and costs €10 for a return ticket. The boat stops at Suomenlinna on the way back so you can combine it with a visit to Suomenlinna if you want.

Vallisaari has two things going for it: it's nature and it's views.

Because it was off-limit to the public for a couple of hundred years, nature has been allowed to develop in a way that you won't find anywhere else in the capital region. For example the island is home to several rare species of insects and bats. The flora is interesting too, you can find Russian plants that must come with the fodder the Russian soldiers brought for their horses during the 19th century.

As you can see from the picture above, the island also has lakes. In fact the original name of the island was Träskön (Lake Island), and for hundreds of years it was used by sailors as a place to pick up fresh water.

Overall it's a very green and lush island, so it wasn't hard to find a nice and comfy spot in the shade where we could sit and rest our little legs.

And of course the island is full of old military constructions. I'm not quite sure what these concrete bunker-like things are. Probably some kind of storage buildings.

Because Vallisaari is located between Helsinki and the sea, you get some amazing views of both the city and the sea if you climb up to one the higher points on the islands. But climbing is hard work when you're as small as we are...

It's well worth it though. If you look to the north you can see the entire city centre as well as the Suomenlinna fortress.

And if you look to the south you're looking out over the Gulf of Finland and the islands south of Helsinki.

So, don't forget to bring you binoculars!

In the picture above I'm looking at the island of Santahamina which is still an active army base. I hope I don't get arrested for spying on them...

That'll be all for today, but come back next week and I'll tell you about my trip to Hanko.