Helsinki; Tuesday, 24 July, 2007

Having locked all my stuff in the locker at Helsinki station, it was far to early to check into the hotel, I headed down to the fish market to catch the boat along the coast to Porvoo.

The town, is about 40Km along the coast from Helsinki and can be reached by regular busses, but its much more interesting to take the steam ship that sails once a day at 10 from the Fish market in Helsinki to the centre of Porvoo. The journey took about 3 ½ hours, wandering along the archipelago, with a short period where it has to run through open sea, which is probably best not experienced in the below deck (and at waterline) café.

I spent a while wandering around the centre of Porvoo taking in the sights and the wooden buildings that it is famous for, before heading to the bus station. Whilst the journey is interesting, it’s probably only worth doing in one direction at over three hours. The bus arrived back in Helsinki just over an hour after it left Porvoo.

After reclaiming my bags, buying train tickets to go out of town for the following day and checking into the hotel, I had a brief wander around the city centre, stopped for an early dinner and then went back to the hotel to try for a really early nights sleep.

At just after 9pm I closed the curtains and switched off the lights, to my delight I couldn’t see anything, no light, total darkness. I switched on the lights, got ready for bed slipped into the comfortable bed, switched off the lights and before I could even think about going to sle…