Helsinki – Finland – Day 1
Heathrow Airport is a great place and I love travelling out of this airport, but the drive there always fills me with dread. It’s not that far, about 60 miles or so from our house and it’s basically just two roads. The A3 and the M25. But it’s that M25 bit that is the unknown part of the whole journey. It’s just four junctions too. Some days it’s moving and easy, other days it’s just a car park. But you never know what kind of day it’s going to be and with a flight to catch, it’s just a worry you could do without.
Today was a good day and the drive up to Heathrow was pretty straight forward. and uneventful. Negotiating that section of the M25 at that hour of the morning gives me the jitters even before I’ve finished my breakfast, but today’s traversing around to junction 14 and the Heathrow long term car park went way better than expected.
Booking the long stay car park in advance through the Heathrow website saves a few quid and is really convenient too, especially if you’re a frequent Heathrow visitor and hold a Heathrow Rewards card, you’ll earn some reward points too.
Exiting off the M25 at junction 14 we drove around the perimeter road and entered the long term car park, but signs were posted indicating that the car park was was totally full and an assistant waved us down gaving us a card with directions on it and a free upgrade to use the T3 Business Car Park.
This was really nice, it involved driving back the way we’d come, but that was OK, and once parked up the shuttle bus appeared, whisking us around to the terminal. All very nice, but the bus doing the pick-ups/drop-offs is way too small. If you travel with anything bigger than a laptop bag, you’re in trouble on these shuttles as the space is very restricted and the driver we had was not best pleased at having to get out and open the boot for passengers with larger cases!
Checking in at the British Airways desk was as easy and friendly as it usually is, being guided to use the Fast-Track security route was a really nice bonus too.
Sat in lounge deciding what to have for breakfast, I suddenly realised I’d forgotten to visit Travelex and pick up my currency. As you’d expect, the BA lounge staff were really helpful and I was given precise instructions on how to exit through a secret door from the departures area and re-enter the UK to retrieve my Euros. It felt very odd re-entering the UK through passport control JUST to pick up my currency. But it all went very well, even when I was recognised by the FastTrack security staff as I went back airside.
The flight was really busy with the flight looking completely full. The stewards though, and unusually for BA, were not that friendly. Snacks and drinks being very quickly dished out and cleared away again.
Getting from Helsinki airport in to the city center is really easy. Following the signs through the terminal to the railway station, you purchase a ticket from a machine for just €5.50 each at the top of the ramp. The machine is not that clearly signed, but it is there. The machine is dual language, so no fears of having to decipher any Finnish. You can also purchase a ticket from the guard too.
Trains run on a loop through the airport, both clock-wise and anti-clockwise, so either of the platforms will get you to the city center. The journey takes about thirty minutes and seem to run every fifteen minutes.
Once at the station, we used an UBER taxi to get to hotel. This worked extremely well and we slid through the evening traffic easily making it to the hotel in about 15 minutes and cost us only €8.00 Euros.
Hotel Katajanokka is simply wonderful and looked beautifully lit as our UBER driver swung in to the carpark.
We were greeted warmly and the friendly girl on the desk checked us in easily and within minutes we found our ‘cell’ up on the second landing. Great building and nice use of a redundant prison building and clever use of the cells too. Each ‘room’ seemed to be two cells knocked together to make a reasonably sized room. Obviously being a former prison the windows are high up, but I didn’t feel that it impacted on our stay.
Having travelled we decided to eat locally and found our dinner in the nearby Mount Everest Katajanokka Nepalese curry house. Food here was geat. Very friendly service and pretty amazing prices too. For €13.90 euros each we had a complete meal and even including our drinks it only came to a total of €29 euros. The restaurant looks like a converted house and is pretty small inside. But the atmosphere was really warm and friendly. Highly recommended and we would eat there again in a heartbeat.
Even though we had only been in Helsinki for a few hours, we already liked the atmosphere and both of us were looking forward to exploring the city in the morning.
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