Home again

I flew home on Monday. What a trip! An 8-hour flight from Helsinki to JFK and another 5-hour flight to LAX. We got in half an hour early to LAX - but then waited almost an hour for a gate. Air travel is living up to all the worst publicity nowadays. Every seat is full. I swear the seats have been pushed closer together. I don't know how really big and/or tall people can tolerate coach anymore. Meals were free on the Helsinki flight, but not on the flight to LAX.

Here's the final waiting lounge for my flight in Helsinki. We went through no less than four passport checks before getting onto the plane. I suppose any flight, especially going into JFK, is subject to serious security - another sign of the times.

For the JFK-LAX flight, my checked bag was opened, as I discovered later from the little TSA inspection label they left behind. But any jumbo jet leaving JFK with a full supply of fuel must also be suspect in this day and age.

Here is my plane, a big MD-11, waiting at the Helsinki airport. Light rain, but we took off on time.

I wonder how Europeans feel when they arrive at JFK. At the Helsinki airport, free luggage carts were outside the airport to lug your checked baggage to the ticket counter. Inside security, there were more free carts, a bit smaller, to drag your carry-ons to the gate. But when you arrive at JFK, no carts are available when you get off the plane and stand in line for passport checks. Then you get your checked bag (even if you are continuing on) to stand in line for customs, then drag it to another counter to re-check for your next flight. Carts are available -- for $3! Welcome to America!

My visits to Finland and Estonia were great, but it's always nice to be home.

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Helsinki landmarks

Today is my last full day in Helsinki before returning home, so I wanted to get a good look at a few more landmarks.

The University Library just north of Senate Square is a beautiful building, opened in 1840, designed by the city architect, Carl Engel.

Engel also designed this building for what is now the University of Helsinki, on the west side of Senate Square.

This 1890 building, called the House of Estates, is located just northeast of Senate Square.

This is the Palace of the Council of State, first opened in 1822, located on the east side of Senate Square. I'm told that this square was used for location sites to evoke St. Petersburg for Warren Beatty's film "Reds."

A few blocks south on Market Square is the famous Kappeli Cafe, which opened in 1867. I stopped for cappuccino.

The Swedish Theatre a few blocks west of Market Square was built in 1866.

I liked these temporary construction fences portraying a French village street.

I'm not crazy about these commercial signs plastered all over office buildings. This one is across the street from the Swedish Theatre. I'm not sure what to think about that statue, which reminds me of the Soviet Realism I saw in Bratislava last fall.

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Finlandia and more

With everything closed for the national holiday today, it seemed like a good time to do more sightseeing of important buildings. Töölönlahti is a huge and very beautiful lake just northwest of the Central Railway Station. It's lined with parkland, play areas, and bike and pedestrian paths that filled up with people as the day went on.

At the northwest corner of the lake is the ultra-modern Finnish National Opera House. This is the western entrance facing the street Mannerheimintie.

This is the eastern side facing the lake. Alas, no performances while I am in town. I've now seen six great European opera houses this summer, without seeing a single performance in any of them.

Here's a view of the lake looking south. In the distant right is the Finlandia Concert Hall. That fountain spewing water to the left in the lake appears to be purely decorative.

On the walk down to the Concert Hall, I saw another speedwalker with cross-country poles, which seems to be popular summer exercise here.

Here's a better view of the Finlandia Concert Hall. "Finlandia" is also the name of Sibelius' most popular composition.

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Sibelius memorial

Today is a national holiday, "Midsummer Day," so virtually everything is closed. Even the busses and trams stopped running until 11 am today. Colleagues at the aesthetics conference said the traditional celebration involves retreating to country houses on the lakes to celebrate the longest day of the year. I don't know if that's where everybody went, but the city of Helsinki is deserted, except for tourists.

When the busses started up, I took the #24 northwest to see the Sibelius Memorial. Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) is the country's most famous composer. The memorial by Eila Hiltunen, consisting of 600 stainless-steel tubes, was completed in 1967, after four years of work.

Some think it is reminiscent of the slender white birch trees in the country. Others think it looks like the pipes of an organ (an instrument for which Sibelius never composed).

Reportedly, there was such an outcry over the design that a separate bust of Sibelius was commissioned and installed near the Memorial. I'm not sure this helps much.

I am reminded of the outcry over the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, which led to the installation of traditional statues of three soldiers adjacent to the much more powerful Memorial. Although the soldiers were of different races, they were all male, which led to another outcry - and the installation of statues representing female nurses who also died in Vietnam. Personally, I think these representational add-ons reflect a sad narrow-mindedness about the original works in both countries.

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Tallinn walls

I understand that most (all?) of Europe's old medieval cities were fortified with heavy walls and gates to provide security. Many of those old walls have been torn down, but Tallinn managed to retain most of theirs, adding to the charm of the old city.

An entrepreneur dressed in medieval garb will let you shoot arrows in front of this wall.

Cafes and vendors line other walls in the city.

Here's a typical wall with guard tower. Construction and restoration seem to be going on everywhere, so that's typical, too.

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Tallinn vistas

Several viewing spots provide magnificent vistas of the medieval city. Most are on the southern and western sides of the town, high on various hills and medieval fortifications. With so many tourists, you had to wait your turn to get to the front to take some pictures.

This one looks to the north, with the harbor in the distance.

This looks more to the east.

UPDATE: In the July/August 2008 issue of AARP magazine, waiting for me when I got home, Peter Greenberg recommends Estonia in his article (p. 20): "Daunted by the Euro? Try these low-cost, low-tourist locales." He says, "Estonia is still off the tourist radar. . . even in the summer." I don't know when he last visited, but tourists have definitely found Tallinn, and I paid the usual exhorbitant prices for my cappuccino (3.4 Euros - about $5). His other European recommendation: Greenland. Sorry, not on my "to-do" list.

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Tallinn town hall

Town Hall Square in Tallinn was the central focus of the medieval old town, the site of everything from carnivals to executions.

The Town Hall building dates from the 15th century.

This tableau of colorful buildings is on the east side of the Square. The entire town was swaming with tourists the day I visited.

Outdoor cafes line most of the Square. This view looks to the northwest corner, where I had cappuccino and hot apple cake with vanilla ice cream. Most have menus with prices in both Estonian Crowns (EKK) and Euros. The waitresses speak English, and they take credit cards.

A local military band provided mid-day entertainment, mainly American jazz and Sousa marches.

Esprit has a store on the southwest corner of the Square. A few blocks to the south, another fashionable clothier, Max Mara, has a store in the medieval old town.

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Tallinn doors

One pleasant surprise in Tallinn is the abundance of beautifully decorated and colorful doors to many houses and other buildings. I took 21 pictures and will only include a few here. I rummaged through tourist books and Googled but could not find any explanation for this phenomenon. Is this a centuries old custom in Tallinn? Is it widespread in northern Europe? Are there any special meanings attached to the various designs and colors? I have no idea, but will try to find out more.

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Tallinn churches

The guidebook to the medieval city shows 12 cathedrals and churches - Lutheran, Catholic, Russian Orthodox, and Ukrainian Greek-Catholic.

One of the oldest structures in Tallinn is the Dominican Monastery, dating from the 13th century. Most of it was destroyed during the Reformation in the 16th century, but some remains were uncovered in archeological digs after WWII.

These portals remain from the Church used by the Dominicans in the 14th century.

These tombstones were recovered by archeologists.

The Church of St. Peter and Paul, home of the only Roman Catholic congregation here, was built in the 19th century on the site of the monastery's dining room.

The most spectacular church in Tallinn is the Russian orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, built in 1900 when Estonia was part of the Russian empire. It sits high on a hill in the southwest part of the old walled city.

A few blocks to the west is the main Lutheran church of Estonia, the Cathedral of Saint Mary the Virgin, built by Danes in the 13th century.

This famous clock, the oldest public timepiece in Tallinn, is on the side of the Holy Spirit Church, built in the 14th century, just to the side of Town Hall Square.

St. Nicholas' Orthodox Church, built in the early 19th century, is on a site tracing to Russian merchants and an earlier church in the 15th century. The medieval walls of the city are visible here on the left.

St. Olav's Church in the northern end of the medieval city dates to the 13th century and once had the highest tower in the city at 159 meters. White speakers and television screens are now installed in this huge church founded by Scandinavian merchants.

The city's only synagogue was destroyed in Allied bombing in 1944. A new one outside the city walls was built in just 2007, but I didn't get over to see it. The 1000 Jews in Tallinn in 1941, when the Nazis invaded, were murdered. When Estonia was forced into the Soviet Union, Jewish organizations were prohibited, so the return of a small Jewish population has been very recent. Apparently there is a small memorial to the Holocaust at the site of the Klooga concentration camp in Estonia, but nothing in Tallinn.

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Tallinn trip

Today I took a 90-minute ferry ride across the Baltic Sea to Tallinn, Estonia, about 40 miles south of Helsinki. It has one of the best-preserved medieval cities in northern Europe, my seasick medicine (Bonine) worked fine, and the weather is perfect. Estonia is one of the three Baltic States (along with Latvia and Lithuania) that broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991. St. Petersburg is to the east and Stockholm, Sweden, to the west.

Here is my ship, operated by the Nordic Jet Line, in Helsinki harbor. The lowest level is filled with cars, the mid-level is the main cabin area, and the top is the control level. Round-trip fare is 56 Euros.

The ship has comfortable seating, a cafe, and duty-free shops. No passports are required, as both Finland and Estonia are in the Shengen Zone ("Fortress Europe"). On the trip back, we had to walk past a police officer with a large dog, perhaps sniffing for drugs.

The harbor in Tallinn is filled with ferries, cruise ships, and a few historic vessels like this one.

The walk from the terminals south to the Old Town area is a few short blocks. This gas station along the way is advertising 18.55 EKK (Estonian Crowns) per liter. That's about $7.40 per gallon!

I checked the Yahoo currency converter, and the dollar has been steadily losing value against even the Estonian Crown this past year. We can't even hold our own against Estonia, a tiny country of 1.3 million people! I didn't bother converting any currency for the day. The cafes all take Euros and credit cards, so it didn't seem worth the trouble.

As I approched the first medieval tower protecting the ancient city, I saw two tram lines go by. They don't run in the historic city, but have several routes into the more modern town.

In a park outside the entrance to the medieval city is a huge black broken arc, with a platform with engraved names. I learned with a little Googling that this memorial is dedicated to the 852 people who died when the ferry "Estonia" sank in 1994 en route to Stockholm. It's been blamed on improperly closed doors on the level for cars. Gulp!

Here is the guardhouse you first see as you enter the medieval city.

Here is the gated entrance showing Pikk street inside.

I took 256 pictures in just this one day, so I'll split up these entries into manageable sizes. I'm glad I added a memory stick and brought an extra battery for my digital camera.

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