Today, we have a HAL tour scheduled, called "A Taste of Finland and Helsinki Highlights" and it doesn't start until 10:00, so it was a nice and relaxing breakfast.   We got to The Showroom at Sea for 09:50 and found that there were very few of us on this tour.   We were lucky that it went ahead actually!   Our guide was a lovely enthusiastic girl called Katerina and our driver was Harri.   We drove through the town and the first stop was the Rock Church.   We had read too much in to the warnings in the excursion guide and decided to stay on the coach.   The 400 yard uphill walk was not as steep as we thought it might be and if the steps were too much we could have just photographed it from the outside.   Afterwards, hearing from those that did do it we thought that it probably was quite do-able and the descriptions were overly pessimistic.   If in doubt have a go, if it becomes too much you can always give up and return to the coach which waits.   Anyway, after that we drove on around the beautiful city with its green spaces and we caught a glimpse of the Sibelius monument.

At midday, we went to an island for lunch, to a restaurant called Savu (smoke) on Tervasaari.   This is just one in a chain of six restaurants and specialises in smoked food.   The owner, Nana, gave us a very interesting talk about Finland before the tasting followed by a demonstration of preparing gravalax by their chef.   Since we can buy fresh fish locally we should give this a go.   Supermarket fish is not fresh enough.   The meal consisted of tasters of food which had been smoked in pine tar.   The smell was delicious, something like Coal Tar Soap.   In fact they were selling soap there.   We had reindeer salami, cheese, smoked carrot (surprisingly delicious), potatoes, tiny herring, salmon and some cream cheese on a little round biscuit.   Then there was bread cheese with cloudberry jam, chocolate pieces, biscuits and some little sweets like Fisherman's Friends, all flavoured with pine tar.   This was not a meal but tasters, but if you had had a good breakfast it will do for a mid-day snack.   We had a taster of Pine Tar Schnapps which was also quite nice, though some didn't like it.   Carol bought a bar of soap and a linen wash mitt as souvenirs.   I was reluctant to leave.   When I did make my way back to the coach I noticed that the rock showed signs of slickensides, though this was probably glaciation.   A nice car park in summer, but maybe treacherous in winter when it's icy.

We continued our drive and our next stop was at the Lutheran Cathedral in Senate Square.   It was a beautiful white church with lovely domes.   When we first arrived, the square in front of the church was full of workmen and construction materials, not hopeful for photography but the coach continued on and round the corner stopping beside the catherdral and we all got out for some decent photos.   Next to the cathedral was a gift shop where Carol bought some postcards and a little red lacquer box of Helsinki.   We then drove back to the ship.   We were delighted with this excursion, even having missed the Rock Church, and we just loved Helsinki.   It wasn't huge like London, Paris or New York, but it was charming and the people seemed to be very welcoming.

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