Friday 6th October 2017

We arrived in Helsinki at Vantaa Airport at around 9 a.m. in the morning after a very comfortable Finnair flight and were very quickly through immigration and customs, picked up our bags and were out in the arrivals hall where we were met by Bill & Paivi.

We drove to their new apartment in a suburb of Helsinki called Vuosaari which is situated in an area near the Baltic Sea with two headlands called Uutela at one end and Kallahdenniemi on the other. The area has a number of 6 to 8 story buildings mostly with balconies and surrounding a small park with a children's playground. The complex is close to the subway, a swimming pool complex (more of this later), a small shopping mall a very nice library which has also a small theater. The building has parking in the basement.

We had breakfast after which we took a nap and later in the afternoon a walk by the sea at a beach area called Aurinkolahti, where we could see the archipelago. The shoreline is fringed by rocks, trees and a small marina and is an attractive place for a stroll. On the way home we stopped at a pub called Solmu for refreshments. Then it was home for a very nice dinner prepared by Bill and Paivi and soon to bed as we had an early start in the morning for our flight to Lapland. We re-packed our bags to contain our cold weather clothes and left the others behind.

Some pictures from our late afternoon walk in the Aurinkolahti area close to Bill & Paivi's apartment