PORVOO

Welcome to Sunny Helsinki said the sign on the side of the shuttle bus yesterday when we went ashore in Helsinki, the ‘Sunny’ scored through,. And they were quite correct to do so. The autumnal gale howled across the harbour blowing the rain horizontally into umbrellas whose structure was severely tested while pointing into the wind and completely and rapidly destroyed if deployed in the wrong direction. Our amusing guide Maarrttii (I’m never sure how many vowels and consonants there are in any Finnish word, but it seems safer to add rather than subtract any - so maybe his names was Marti) told us that this typical weather for this time of the year could change and we might indeed see some sun later in the day. This quip was received with derisive laughter by the passengers in his coach and indeed he proved to be inaccurately optimistic.

Our original plan had been to simply walk around Helsinki retracing the steps of our last visit about 30 years ago, but we were diverted from this by the thought of visiting Porvoo, which sounded like a nice little spot and which featured in friend Pam’s excellent FaceBook pictures of her and Eric’s trip. At that time we thought we might get to the railway station and catch a train out there. Just as well both these concepts were abandoned as walking around Helsinki in the pouring rain would have been pretty miserable and the trains had moved onto a winter timetable which would have made getting to and from Porvoo much more difficult in the time available – we were only in port for six hours. As things turned out we had a good time – probably better than the other tours on offer because the weather did clear a little as we drove through the countryside (Porvoo is about 40 km from Helsinki) and when we got there apart from some sprinkling showers and the odd gust of cold wind, the weather wasn’t bad at all.

We’ve been very fortunate so far and even St Petersburg at 12C and Helsinki at 10C weren’t really cold. Marti told us that they expected the first real snow of winter in about two weeks time and that by mid-November they would normally be under snow until the end of March or April. Our arrival in Stockholm has been delayed by an hour, apparently due to a storm between Helsinki and Stockholm last night. It is true that there were some bumps and bounces during the night which stirred us in our seep, but if that was rough weather, we didn’t really notice it. No doubt some of the souls who believe they suffer from sea sickness, so much of which is in the mind rather than the inner ear, will be missing their meals this morning as a result.

The woods made a lovely sight as we rumbled along the motorway. Mainly beech and spruce the contrast between the yellowing gold of the turning beech and the dark green of the spruce made for a pleasant spectacle. Of course these woods are nothing like those of New England where we went ‘leaf peeping’ about five or six years ago. Even with my defective colour vision I could see the glory in those leaves and trees. As we went over one bridge, past a small settlement, Marti pointed out an anchored boat – not a large one – with a large metal structure on the stern. He said it belonged to an old fellow who had built a sauna on the back of the boat so he could easily move between the freezing water of the bay and the sauna. The Finns seem to be obsessed with saunas and, we were told, they are everywhere – saunas as well as Finns.

Porvoo is, like Dragor and Bad Doberman, a place that many ‘proper’ travellers look down on. Generally there are no stupendous works of art or examples of soaring architecture in these places; they exist to attract tourists with their prettiness, evoking a feeling of stepping in the past. We like that feeling and perhaps our views can be compared to those who, like us ‘know what they like’ in art and simply dislike (strongly in some cases) what is seen as the pretentions of those who think that Tracey Emin’s dirty underwear or the pickled sheep for which the Saatchis paid a fortune are (a) works of art and (b) more attractive than, say, a Constable. But I digress – WE like the little villages over the big cities every time. In our drive around Italy three years ago, for example, we avoided the centres of art and concentrated on meeting locals and eating local food – apart from a day trip to Venice because we happened to be nearby for a wedding. One of the guests at the wedding – an old South African who hadn’t travelled much was less impressed with Venice than most people. “Man,” he said, “these people invented paint, why don’t they paint their buildings? They live like rats there.”

So…..Philistines as we are, we had a very pleasant time wandering through the village, sampling their excellent homemade cake, buying a couple of amusing home made chocolates for the grandchildren – they look like little sprats (the chocolates, not the grandchildren) because this is Baltic Herring week in Helsinki. Which reminds me of Lars (who we will be seeing later today) and the Baltic Herring Pie.

He is an excellent cook, as is Gerd, his wife. Since he retired there has been something of a problem in the kitchen as he demands equal cooking time. Gerd, ever the peacemaker, has negotiated a reasonable compromise, where they share the duties. On our last visit when we were doing our winter Baltic tour, it was Lars’ turn to cook the final dinner before we left for Estonia. I was with him when he went to the supermarket to buy the ingredients and was surprised to see him buy three packs of Baltic Herring fillets – about 750 grams (about a pound and a half). That seemed a lot of fish for four people in a pie (the fish, not the people in the pie of course). Of course I said nothing, since I do my best not to interfere in others’ decision making process and Lars duly went about his cooking and baking, eventually producing a delicious pie, with all the little tails forming a fence around the edge. It would probably have comfortably fed ten people and we fully expected to be offered a bit of the cold pie when we returned ten days later. Of course we have never let Lars forget this episode.

But I digress. Apart from the local comestibles, Rab was also able to find a very nice warm jacket to remind her of Porvoo – something that was NOT made in China but in Finland. An unusual find these days, but typical of this kind of venue. There were some excellent photo opportunities and I think my favourite so far is the one I was lucky enough to take of an old local receiving his post from the postie as he went his rounds. Although I rather like another of an abandoned picnic table and umbrella in a sea of golden leaves. I’ll try to get both up and you can be the judge.

We headed back to Helsinki and the rain after our meanderings were completed and stopped in the city square where there was yet another Cathedral and statue of Alexander II. Seems he was quite the lad as far as the people were concerned before he was assassinated. Must try to find out a bit more about that – was he too forward thinking – ahead of his time? Or a laggard who couldn’t move fast enough? The square was not far from the quayside market place and in the light of Baltic Herring Week, I thought I should see some of the goods on offer in the half hour before we made our way back to our ship. Rab and most of the tour group stayed on the bus, but some of us braved rain and wind to see what there was down there.

Not a lot, as it turned out. A handful of hardy souls were manning stalls that seemed in imminent danger of collapse. They had a wonderful harvest of fish and had time and opportunity coincided, I would have loved to take advantage of some of the samples on offer. As it was I limited myself to one purchase. I saw a box of what looked like jerky or, as we would say in South Africa, biltong and thought this might be similar to the dried fish I bought in Seattle last year. That was very tasty indeed, although Rab insisted it made me smell like an old seal or walrus. I asked the old duffer running the stall what it was and he just shrugged his shoulders and pointed at the young girl serving another customer. When she had concluded the sale she came over to me and I repeated the question, which she didn’t really understand. I’d had a closer look at the goods and so I asked her if it was smoked eel? “No,” she said, “they are lamprey.” Well, close enough I thought, so I said I would have one, asking as she wrapped my purchase, “Is it good?” “No,” she said, “I don’t like it.” But she was wrong – it was very tasty and I was sorry that I dared not take any back to the coach for an evening snack with a beer.

We fought our way back to the gangplank to the welcome warmth of the good old Marco Polo and after a couple of cocktails, while relaxing and listening to the piano/violin duo knocking out a couple of tunes we went down to dinner to the first meal that wasn’t quite up to the very high standards of the food so far. By chance all but one of us on the table ordered the medallions of beef and found them tough and somewhat tasteless. Not inedible by any manner of means, but certainly in the ‘could try harder’ category. The after dinner show was a rock ‘n’ roll evening, most of which was pretty good, but I guess some of the hits in Rumania, Ukraine and Belarus, which is where the dancers and singers come from, didn’t make it to our part of the world, so we didn’t recognise them.

And so to bed, perchance to dream….