From 9th – 18th September, Finland’s capital city hosted its annual Design Week. Now in its 6th year, the city-wide event aims to bring design-minded locals and visitors together to celebrate the social role of design in a city that prides itself on its people-oriented and open approach to design.
Helsinki is one place I have always wanted to visit. Last August, I wrote a feature for Designer magazine called ‘A City by Design’ all about how Finland’s creative sector is reshaping Helsinki’s economy and improving the lives of its citizens. Having learnt so much about Helsinki, I couldn’t wait to plan my first visit and luckily I didn’t have to wait too long.
When my best friend Thomas suggested we go to Helsinki Design Week this year, needless to say I jumped at the opportunity to go and explore the second-most northern capital city in the world. And lucky for me, Thomas happens to be a flight attendant for Lufthansa so he was able to get us some great discounts for our trip.
As we were in Helsinki for a few days, I’m going to have to break this blog post down into a few different parts. In Part 1, I’m going to focus on my trip and I’ll concentrate on sharing some of the important information that Thomas and I learnt so if any of you decide to take a trip to Helsinki, which I thoroughly recommend that you do, you might find some of this useful or at least a starting point for planning your trip.
I flew from London Heathrow with Blue 1 and met Tom in Helsinki as he flew with Lufthansa direct from Frankfurt in Germany where he is based. Getting to Helsinki city centre from the airport was simple, we hopped on the 615 bus, which goes from right outside the airport and for a very reasonable 4€ each it took us right into the centre and dropped us off by the main train station. From here it was a short 10 minute walk to the Crowne Plaza on Mannerheimintie, where Thomas had reserved us a twin room.
The location was perfect as it was well within walking distance from the city centre and for anywhere further afield a number of trams stopped just metres from the hotel including the 7, 7B, 3T, and 10. One tip we picked up is that it is cheaper to buy a tram ticket from the ticket machine on the platform than it is to buy it from the driver. There were also plenty of restaurants within 10 minutes walk of the hotel and a great supermarket too.
It’s worth noting here that Helsinki is a pretty expensive city, even compared to the UK. Eating out is quite pricey and main courses generally cost about 30-40€, that is unless you are feeling really adventurous and want to opt for reindeer at over 50€ or bear at about 100€.
Thomas and I generally didn’t eat out in the evening though as we were pretty exhausted after a full day of exploring. We found that the local supermarket, which we had to pass on the way back to the hotel, had a great deli counter that served hot and cold dishes including a variety of traditional Finnish dishes like Kaalikääryleet and Lihapullat. For about 25€ we bought a veritable feast, which we took back to our hotel room to savour.
We did however eat lunch out a few times while we were there and I am now a big fan of Finnish sandwiches – the ones on dark rye bread are delicious – and cakes. Sandwiches, cake and coffee for two people came in at about 15-20€ but was certainly worth it. Of all the places we had lunch over the few days, my favourite had to be Cafe Esplanad in the Design District. Right opposite Artek and just up the road from Marimekko, this lovely little French bistro style pavement cafe served sandwiches, soup, paninis, salads, jacket potatoes and an exquisite variety of cakes and pastries. They also do free refills on filter coffee, which is good to know!
We also discovered a lovely market that was open everyday in the Market Square on the South Harbour at the end of the Esplanade Park. The stalls there sell everything from souvenirs, jewelery, clothes and toys to fresh fruit and vegetables and baked goods. This provided the perfect opportunity for us to buy yet more fresh Finnish cakes!
Everyone we met in Helsinki spoke excellent English so we had no worries where language was concerned although being linguists ourselves, Thomas and I made every effort to pick up a few useful bits of Finnish so we could at least be polite. Below are a few useful phrases you may need to know:
Moi / Hei = hi
Puhutteko Englantia? = Do you speak English?
Kiitos = thanks
Hei hei = bye
We also found that the city is pretty well connected when it comes to free Wi-Fi and it was really easy to get online.
As we only had a few days in Helsinki we had to be very strict with our time so that we could fit in everything we wanted to do and see before the journey home. In the next few blog posts, you can find out about our walking tour of the Design District, our trip to Habitare, our visit to the Old Customs Warehouse and our tour of the Design Museum.
All images taken by Stacey Sheppard
Looks like you had a great trip. Looking forward to more posts from the Design week. Are you going to 100% design in London as well?