Best Things to Do in Helsinki

Helsinki is a city of human-scale architecture, island parks and warm public interiors rather than roped-off velvet palaces. Here are the ten experiences that define a visit in any season.

1. Sail to the UNESCO-listed Suomenlinna Sea Fortress. Board the 15-minute HSL municipal ferry from the Market Square to walk six linked islands of 18th-century stone bastions, grass-roofed tunnels, dry docks and seafront picnic rocks.
2. Stand in Senate Square and step inside the National Library. Admire Carl Ludvig Engel's white Helsinki Cathedral and walk next door into the free Corinthian rotunda and frescoed vaults of the 1840 National Library of Finland.
3. Explore Oodi Central Library. Walk up the sweeping spruce-timber spiral staircase of Helsinki's flagship "living room of the nation" to the sunlit third-floor Book Heaven and balcony facing Parliament.
4. Visit Temppeliaukio Rock Church and the Kamppi Chapel. Experience the acoustics inside a church blasted straight out of solid granite bedrock under a 24-metre copper-wire dome, paired with the curved wooden sanctuary of the Chapel of Silence.
5. Steam and plunge at Löyly or Allas Sea Pool. Alternate between a traditional smoke sauna or harbour-side steam room and a refreshing dip via a ladder into the Baltic Sea.
6. Eat creamy salmon soup inside the 1889 Old Market Hall (Vanha kauppahalli). Pull up a wooden stool by the harbour for a bowl of lohikeitto and dark rye bread.
7. Ride Tram 2 and Tram 3 on a figure-eight loop. See the Olympic Stadium, Kallio, the Design District, Eira's Jugendstil villas and the harbour on a single city ticket.
8. Walk through Sibelius Park and Seurasaari Open-Air Museum. Combine Eila Hiltunen's welded steel-pipe Sibelius Monument with a wooden bridge walk onto a forested island of historic Karelian and Ostrobothnian log farmsteads.
9. Browse the Design District and Jugendstil streets of Katajanokka. Spot owls, bears and pine cones carved into 1900s National Romantic stone facades along Huvilakatu and Luotsikatu.
10. Take a two-hour ferry across the Gulf of Finland to medieval Tallinn. Add a second European capital to your trip with an easy day return by high-speed ship.