Suomenlinna translates to castle of Finland, but Suomenlinna is definitely not that. It is an 18th century maritime fortress that was designed by Augustin Ehrensvärd and took close to 40 years to build. AND IT IS SO FREAKIN' AWESOME.
Ehrensvärd was buried here:
There is a shipyard, which is now used to restore old boats and ships. However, when the Russians held the fortress, they used the shipyard as a swimming pool to go with the sauna in the white building you can see in the background.
Along the southern side are some massive sand dunes - the dunes are there to protect the fortress from canon attacks as the sand would just absorb the impact of the canon balls. There are also a number of giant canons still in place.
I found it quite cool that they are still on their circular tracks. I've seen a lot of these tracks in my life, but I have never seen a canon on one. Admittedly, I never really figured out how the tracks worked until now...
King's Landing Gate
It is built on a series of small islands just a quick ferry ride from Helsinki. The ferry costs €5 for a return ticket and it comes every 15 minutes or so. The ferry is free if you've got the Helsinki Card (along with all of the museums on Suomenlinna).
Nowadays, about 800 people live on Suomenlinna. There's even a primary school and a small grocery store. Along with a prison.
Lots of the old buildings and fortifications still remain though. We even managed to walk through some of the old tunnel networks.
When the Russians took over the fortress in the early 19th century, they boarded up the canon holes in this particular tunnel because they believed that they faced the direction of St Petersburg.
There is a shipyard, which is now used to restore old boats and ships. However, when the Russians held the fortress, they used the shipyard as a swimming pool to go with the sauna in the white building you can see in the background.
Along the southern side are some massive sand dunes - the dunes are there to protect the fortress from canon attacks as the sand would just absorb the impact of the canon balls. There are also a number of giant canons still in place.
I found it quite cool that they are still on their circular tracks. I've seen a lot of these tracks in my life, but I have never seen a canon on one. Admittedly, I never really figured out how the tracks worked until now...
They totally had Hobbit houses before Tolkien wrote about them
My favourite part of the day was having a look around the Vesikko submarine. It was used during World War II, but after the war Finland wasn't allowed to have any submarines and so this one was docked (I think the others were destroyed).
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