Rob and the California George Family

Way back in October, I promised to write a blog entry about my visit to Suomenlinna Sea Fortress which is on a series of islands just off the coast of Helsinki. I spent a day there visiting. I wrote about my near-failure with geocaching last October, but not about the rest of the photos that I took. Since I don't have a camera to take pictures on this trip, I will share some from my prior trip.

For those not familiar with my prior post, Suomenlinna was built by Sweden (which controlled Finland at the time) to keep the Russian navy in check in the mid-1700s. It was considered second only to Gilbraltar in strength. One of my activities was a walking tour and the history was very interesting to learn. After the tour, I wandered on my own for the rest of the afternoon. The pictures below were from my ferry ride over and the visit on the island.

Here is the ferry that I took over to the island. It can carry two cars in the center. There was one car on my trip over. The ride takes about 20 minutes.


I did some experiments with the timer on my phone's camera so that I could be in more pictures. In this shot, cannons have been used as fence posts with chain going around a church. The camera is sitting on the steps on the church.


... and here is the church. It is the only church in the world that also serves as a working lighthouse. The top of the church has the rotating light. This was a naval fortress and it is at the entrance to Helsinki's harbor, so using the tallest building for a lighthouse made sense.


The pictures below show one of the most popular beaches in the Helsinki area. Not much space by California standards, but they make do with what they get.



There were lots of old cannons around the islands. Some in museums. Some out in the open placed in their historical positions.







I wondered what this cannon could see from its point of view.


With the help of my timer, I found out.



The afternoon was much sunnier than the morning. While the air was still chilly, it turned into a very nice day.


Finally, there is the tale of the boat channel that runs right by the farthest of the fortress islands. The channel is fairly narrow -- or at least I thought so when I watched this guy go through.




I couldn't believe it when I saw this ship coming a few minutes later!


But it made it through!





Wow, what an overload of pictures. Good thing that I didn't post them ALL in this message! It was a nice, long walk around the islands.

Labels: Travel