Nostalgia

Nearly 25k steps have been done today chasing nostalgia.

We started off with a tram trip to Apollonkatu (our former tram stop), before doing our usual walk over to the Sibelius monument and down to Regatta where it would, of course, have been rude not to stop for a coffee and korvapuusti. Then we wandered on and on, through and past the cemeteries to Lapinlahden, and through Ruoholahti and Jatkässaari, before we ended up having lunch at a new looking casual restaurant at the place we call "the complex junction". From there, we wandered down to Eiranranta (and on the way I got my blip in an area of ship warehouses which are being redeveloped - what appeared to be an unnamed piece of public art). Then we headed back north towards the hotel. In the end, although it was inconvenient that the hotel had been changed and I didn't realise it (and it made for slightly longer walks all dressed up...), it was better to be on Bulevardi over the weekend. The area south of there is full of bars and restaurants (and shops which were mercifully closed when we did most of our wanderings), as well as one of our favourite places: Pizza Alfons. We went there for pizza this evening, and astonishingly, the man who was serving us recognised Mr A, although we last ate there on 15 May 2019 (thanks, Blip).

I have no idea whether we will ever make a trip to Helsinki together again, and so we made the most of the time, chasing nostalgia and memories. It was good, although I'm feeling the sun a bit this evening, after four days of wall to wall sunshine, plus being out in the sun quite a bit). It's been an amazing time, and I'm so glad that the direct flights between Edinburgh and Helsinki positioned themselves propitiously for us to be able to have a couple of days of holiday at the end.