Exploring Helsinki

We arrived in Helsinki in the afternoon yesterday and explored on the way to our hotel.

Top of our list was a square with interesting domes and shapes sticking up from an underground building.

We couldn't be bothered to go into the subterranean modern art museum, but enjoyed the top and strange green statues.

Not too far away is the national library, another amazing building that we thought was by Zara Hadid, but apparently is by a local Helsinki architect.

We reached our hotel, settled in and then fast forward to this morning. We had decided to go for a run around the city sights, but knew that we had to go out early as rain was forecast.

As soon as we left the building it started to drizzle, but not to be put off, we carried along our route.

It was all very different to yesterday, and we completely missed Sibelius's sculpture park. The rain got heavier and we searched for his statue.

In the end we had to give up, and the best that we could do was find a statue of someone beginning with an S.

Passing in front of the national library we were surprised to see a very large hare leaping about on the grass in front of it.

In the afternoon we caught a bus to the airport, and in torrential rain we had to run about 100 metres from the bus stop to the train station.

It took a couple of hours to dry out afterwards and I decided to throw my trainers away rather than than carry them around.

Finally, we are now back in Latvia at a little town called Bauska and have just enjoyed the most fantastic dinner, accompanied by local beer and a massive glass of prosecco that appeared to be on tap.