Eight hours transit at Helsinki Airport was a perfect chance for me to discover Finland's capital and the nearby World Heritage Site, Fortress of Soumenlinna. Unknown that today was a public holiday when I reached the city center, I was very surprised that the whole city was very quiet, and few shops were opened. I wandered around to see the city landmarks and walked to the port to catch a ferry to Suomenlinna. The port area was unexpectedly cheerful and packed with tourists and locals, most of them were waiting for ferry to the fortress. The ferry was quite frequent; after waiting for 15 minutes, I boarded the ferry and left Helsinki behind. The view of Helsinki Bay was only OK with typical Nordic landscape with a lot of nice wooden houses but nothing spectacular like Stockholm or Saint Petersburg.
In my idea Suomelinna was similar to a small village with a mixed of Skansen, it even had a brewery and fancy restaurants. Anyway, I quite enjoyed my visit to this place; it was a nice place to spend time while in Helsinki and a good place to learn Finnish history and landscape. The only thing that really distracted me while I was walking along the seashore was a sight of fast ferry to Tallinn in Estonia, ahh! so near for another country and another world heritage site!