Lahti has a population of about 120,000 but you can't buy Russian rubles anywhere in the city. The nearest place where rubles can be bought is Forex at the Jumbo shopping mall in Vantaa an hour's drive from our home. In Russia, you need cash because credit cards are not welcome everywhere.
After exchanging currency, we ate at IKEA in Vantaa. They happened to have a summer buffet. 10€ for adults, 5€ for kids. If you want to eat decent food on the cheap, IKEA is an ok choice.
Salad
Fish
Main course
Dessert. This was yougurt+merengue+lime something. Pretty good.
Capuccino
After eating, we headed for Suomenlinna fortress in Helsinki. It was another hot day, 30 C, and we figured it would be nice and cool by the sea. Suomenlinna is practically a very large open air museum on a group of four islands accessible at the price of a Helsinki city bus ticket. That's because there are actually hundreds of residents in addition to the fortress on the islands.
We came close to a departing Viking Line Sweden ferry.
Naval Academy
Silja Line sailed shortly before Viking Line.
Yet another passenger ship in the distance
A close encounter of another kind
The sea voyage took about 10-15 minutes. These spikes were on top of a gate. They were probably added to prevent seagulls from sitting and shitting on the gate mechanism.
Canadian geese were abundant on the island.
Their chicks had hatched a short while ago. We saw hundreds of them.
We took a walk on the eastern side of the island, off the beaten path.
There is a cafeteria in that house but it was closed.
Ok. Now what?
Let's see what's on the inside of the wall.
The gate to Suomenlinna minimum security prison. This is the last stop for prisoners before release on parole. Gaining freedom is a step-by-step process.
These are actually residential buildings. The bicycles are a dead giveaway.
This channel is between the two main islands. We heard a loud rumble from the sea in the south.
A seagull?
We decided to head back. After taking this shot, I put the camera away to protect it from the rain.
The rain shower turned out to be very brief and I got my camera out of the bag again.
Hanko, a Hamina class missile boat.
Back to the city.