Helsinki

Sunday morning finds us in Helsinki. It is a gorgeous day and we enjoyed a very leisurely walk through the old section. We were both too overwhelmed with St PB to put much energy into a tour of Helsinki. We agreed to simply take a local bus into the center of town and just walk a bit. We found two huge churches to photograph. Between visiting these, we stopped in a converted small boat and sat on the upper deck and sipped an ice tea. This afforded us a nice view of other walkers and a small smattering of dogs. Then we walked to the next church and climbed a huge set of stairs, almost straight up to look into a beautiful Lutheran church with a massive pipe organ, which was being tuned. It sounded like ship horns because they were working on the lowest and deepest pipes. When we left this church we worked our way back to the main esplanade and sat outside a sidewalk café and enjoyed a beer. We did a tiny bit of shopping in a small shop and then returned to the bus stop for a quick ride back to the ship. Linda is sound asleep as I write this and I am in the Explorations Lounge getting caught up with my reporting. We are going to some fancy cocktail party tonight and then have dinner reservations. We will go to sleep as the ship heads to Stockholm.