Day trip to Helsinki from Tallinn
We decided to take a day trip to the capital city of Finland, Helsinki from Tallinn using the ferry, which only takes 2 hours.
I booked the 10:30am ferry from Tallinn to arrive in Helsinki at 12:30pm. The ferry back to Tallinn was at 19:30, giving us around 6.5 hours to explore the city.
I ordered the tickets online, selecting which ferry and time I wanted. When we got to the ferry terminal we entered our codes into the check in machine and received both our outbound and inbound tickets. We found our gate, scanned our tickets and boarded the ferry. It was a really easy, simple process. The ship is full of places to eat and drink, along with a two storey shop with clothes, sunglasses, perfumes, beauty products, alcohol, electronics and many others things to browse or purchase. The ferry wasn’t at capacity and there were plenty of comfy seats.
When we arrived in Helsinki we bought tram tickets for zone A and B and hopped on the number 7 tram to Helsinki Cathedral.
We spent about 20-30 minutes taking photos, wandering up the cathedral steps and inside the cathedral. It is a lot smaller inside than I expected considering the size of the cathedral from the outside. This was free to visit.
We then took a stroll over to the Uspenski Cathedral which is Greek Orthodox. It’s a very impressive building from the outside and the inside too. We walked up the steps and had a look inside. It’s decorated very beautifully along the walls and the ceiling with many gold coloured features. This was also free to visit.
Uspenski Cathedral
We then grabbed a bolt which cost about €5 to Temppeliaukio church. The church is built around the rocks, using them as a lot of the main structure of the building. This was €8 for adults and free for under 17’s. To be honest, I don’t think the price was worth it, considering there isn’t any information inside about how it was built or any history. However, it was a nice experience and somewhere to keep warm for a while! There is a really nice souvenir shop across the road full of the classic tourist items; magnets, badges, t shirts, hats, Christmas decorations etc.
Temppeliaukio Church
After that we strolled back into the main area of the city and had an early dinner at Green Hippo https://www.greenhippocafe.rocks .Green Hippo is a mainly vegetarian restaurant with delicious food. We ordered a veggie burgers with patatas bravas, avocado pesto pasta and beetroot pasta, all the dishes were very yummy.
We had about an hour to spare before heading back to the ferry terminal so we decided to stop off at the city museum. It’s free to enter and showcases the history of Helsinki, what life was like in the city along with personal memories of the city’s residents. You don’t need a huge amount of time here.
When we were finishing at the city museum, I ordered a bolt, which cost around €5, to get us back to the ferry terminal. Again the process of boarding the ferry was very simple and 2 hours later we were back in Tallinn at around 9:30pm.