first thing today was leaving pori and heading back to helsinki airport, because our aeroplane to ivalo will leave tomorrow in the morning. while driving back to the capital of finland, we stopped at a small flea market[01-02] right next to the street, and later stopped at a little lake called venäjänlammi[03-17]. there a family was bathing. after another hour of driving we stopped at another little lake called salkolanjärvi[20-25]; there it was very windy. but the short break was good to keep awake while driving. finally, in the afternoon, we arrived at the airport hotel, checked in, left our luggage in the room, and took the airport shuttle to get to the finnair bus to helsinki centre. this gave us a few hours for a stroll through helsinki[26-89], starting (and ending) at the helsinki train station[26-27,81,85-86], with its beautiful granite statues outside[85-86], and a clock tower[81]. opened in 1919, it is the most visited building, and was recently chosen to be amongst the most beautiful railway stations, and is an important landmark in finland. next landmarks and not far from the station are kolmen sepän patsas[28] (the "three smiths" statue) and the stockmann[28-29] building right next to it. the stockmann building is the largest department store in finland, and the biggest in the nordic countries. right next to the statue is an esplanade[29-37], a big green area with loads of cafes and restaurants, an open air stage, and many people[32]. seems like a place for finns to hang out. at the end of "espi" there is a fountain[36] with a nude female status, called havis amanda[34-36], fish, and sea lions spouting water. while it was not accepted by the people of helsinki when it was first erected, it is now considered to be the most beautiful piece of art in helsinki; time and taste change. adjacent to the fountain is the lyypekinlaituri[38-46], also known as the "port to luebeck", because ships started from here to luebeck. usually there seems to be a big market on the kauppatori[45-47], "market square", as the name implies, and according to all the street signs and marks on the ground, but now there was none. so we went on to the uspenski cathedral[48-50], an eastern orthodox cathedral, we did not enter. instead we walked narrow streets to get to the next big landmark in helsinki. the tasavallan presidential palace[52-53], and the senate square, called senaatintori[59-68]. in the middle of the huge place with loads of steps[63-65] is the helsinki cathedral, helsingin tuomiokirkko[59,61,63-75]. right in front is a statue of alexander ii[61-62]. usually this place is crowded, but we were pretty alone there. our little stroll then took us back again to the shopping miles of helsinki, with loads of beautiful old buildings and storefronts[76-79]. for dinner we went to a kebab restaurant, where we had a decent kebab. well fed and full we headed back to the elielplatsen for our bus back to the airport, just to get our transfer bus to the holiday inn hotel again. this day the weather was way friendlier, with another 20°C and rain only from time to time. track for day 03.