Food and food halls in Helsinki

By now we were burned out on churches.  We had seen the fabulous Rock Church in Helsinki before as well as the giant Lutheran Church that towers over government square, so we decided to skip the "city tour" the morning we arrived in Helsinki and wander over to the food halls by the harbor.  We also skipped breakfast in favor of eating fresh from the market food at their outdoor cafe.

We picked two kinds of the salmon and two kinds of shrimp salads on dark dense bread- and loved it all.  Phil went back for another round on the "toast skagen" (shrimp) and we grabbed some beverages from this stand-

then after breaking our fast we headed back into the market/food halls to check out what was on offer- wish we had these in America!

 

We walked around town and actually made a couple of purchases a few hand towels with hooks that are so common in northern Europe but so rare in the U.S.  We also stopped to replenish our Euro supply for the next trips we take to Europe and that was challenging as the cash machines are few and far between in Helsinki - they use mobile apps (we found this out later in Sweden) and so no one caries a lot of cash or needs to have any for that matter.... except the tourists LOL-

we had a made a lunch reservation when we were at breakfast and so eventually we wound our way through the outdoor market to the restaurant on the harbor that we had chosen for lunch. OLO is the name of the place and we later found out it is one of the Michelin starred restaurants in Finland and by some reviewers rated the #1 restaurant (ravintola in Finnish) in Helsinki....

 on to lunch!

the men's and women's toilets LOL

 

terrific lunch- so happy we were able to relax on our own this day- back to the ship and then we headed out of Helsinki and on to Stockholm - below the view from the sundeck over the harbor-

It was a lovely relaxing day in Finland and tomorrow we disembark the ship in the morning and because they take on new passengers at 2 PM we must clear out of our cabins by 9 AM despite not arriving into port until 11 AM.... so stay tuned for a few more days as land-lubbers and the rest of the trip......