Family Fun in Europe, Part 15: Helsinki

This is my fifteenth post about our family's 2024 trip to Europe. I recommend reading the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth posts before this one.

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Helsinki, Finland

On Monday, July 29 we arrived in Helsinki, Finland. We took a tour, but we saw very little of Helsinki. Any guesses what we did instead? Here's a hint:

I'll get to that later though. First, we got on a bus. Hi Kari! Hi Allison! Hi Dad!

We drove a short distance from the pier...

... to Senate Square. The square is surrounded by four buildings: Helsinki Cathedral, the Government Palace, the main building of the University of Helsinki, and the National Library of Finland. In the center, there is a statue of Alexander II. We were there for the Guards Parade. 

Held during the summer months, the Guard Parades originally dates back to the time of Swedish rule. The current version has been an unbroken tradition since 1919, interrupted only by the Continuation War and the 2020 COVID pandemic. 

We drove by some notable sites in Helsinki. This is the Central Railway Station. 

I hadn't noticed this billboard. Of course Steve took a picture! That looks like Brayden!

And that was all we saw of Helsinki. We drove another half-hour before we reached Nuuksio National Park in Espoo. 

There is a lot to do at Nuuksio - hiking, nature centers, geocaching, swimming, cycling, and even foraging for mushrooms and berries. We did none of those. We went straight to Poro Puisto. 

Translated from the Finnish: Reindeer Park!

After a brief introduction to the resident reindeer, we got to feed them. 

I highly recommend feeding reindeer, if you ever get the chance. 

So what do reindeer eat? An average adult reindeer eats about 10 pounds of mosses, ferns, grasses, shoots, and leaves a day. During the summer, that is. I'm sure you're aware that reindeer live in snowy climates, where much of their food doesn't grow in the winter and/or gets buried in snow. During the winter, they eat mostly lichen and fungi. We fed them lichen. They loved it. 

Reindeer don't have upper teeth, so they just sort of slurped the lichen from our hands. 

Allison got to feed them the last crumbs of lichen from the bucket. 

Reindeer shed their antlers annually, so they had some there for us to "try on." 

After the feeding was over, we went into a traditional Sami dwelling. The Sami people are best known for their semi-nomadic reindeer herding. 

Inside, we had a Finnish cinnamon bun and lingonberry juice. Yum!

We had such a nice time at the Reindeer Park!

  

We loved our time with the reindeer and I would choose the same shore excursion again without hesitation. The trade-off is that we saw almost nothing in Helsinki. But that just means we need to return someday and spend more time, which we're more than happy to do. 

Tomorrow I'll tell you about our next port of call. It's a new-to-us city in a country we'd already visited during this trip.