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.

The first view I saw on Suomenlinna was a bastion fortification system on the island with many buildings behind and a flag of Finnish Navy. The ferry stopped at a pink tower gate that also served as a lighthouse and clock tower. After the gate the first building I saw was a church, a church was quite unique that its tower was also a lighthouse. Then I saw many brick buildings that served as museum, library, café etc. There also was an area that similar to fisherman village with lovely pier. I crossed the bridge to another island; actually, the fortress was located on many islands. The building on this island was quite different; most of them were wooden houses and painted in yellow. I saw many locals had picnic in the lawn enjoying good sunshine. Then I saw the fortifications, some of them were covered with grass to hind the enemy, I found many stone gates in this side of the fortress were very refine compared to other area.

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!