Helsinki Points of Interest and Places to Visit

Your cruise ship will likely dock at the South Terminal, which is easy walking distance to the center of Helsinki. Trams 1A, 3B and 3T can take you further inland and both 3B and 3T make full loops around the center if you would like to get an overview of the city before exploring on foot. Larger ships make dock at the West Terminal, which is further out from the center. From there, limited ferries run to and from Kauppatori (Market Square) or you can take a taxi into the city center. Start your day by checking out Kauppatori, also known as Market Square. There you can find fresh flowers, fruit, fish and a variety of Finnish souvenirs. Market Square is also the departure point for harbor cruises and ferries to nearby islands. A must-see is Suomenlinna Island - a UNESCO World Heritage site and home to one of the world’s largest maritime fortresses, dating back to 1748. You can easily spend a couple hours exploring the island on foot.

Located a mile from the city center in the Töölö district, Helsinki Olympic Stadium (Helsingin Olympiastadion) is the biggest arena in Finland, with 40,600 spectator spots. Finland was originally meant to host the 1940 Summer Olympics, but the outbreak of World War II delayed the games until 1952, when the country finally got to host the big event. Today, the stadium is home to the national soccer team and houses big-name concerts and sports events every year. For views of all of Helsinki and its downtown, take the elevator to the top of the 72.21-meter Stadium Tower. Why the idiosyncratic height? Well, that was the gold-medal winning result of Finnish athlete Matti Järvinen’s javelin throw in the 1932 Summer Olympics, of course! Aside from its 14-story viewing tower, the Helsinki Olympic Stadium also has a restaurant, an Olympics museum and, quirkily enough, a youth hostel.

Finlandia Hall (or Finlandiatalo) is Helsinki's concert and congress hall. It is also an architecture masterpiece by famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto (1898 - 1976) who was sometimes referred to as the Father of Modernism. In Helsinki, Aalto wanted to realize the major plan for a grand square and avenue flanked by cultural buildings, including the Parliament Building, first thought of by Eliel Saarinen in 1917 when Finland became independent of Russia. He drew plans for a grand center to Helsinki in 1961 and modified them in 1964 and 1971; you could say the city was a lifelong project of his. Finlandia Hall was designed in 1962 and built between 1967 and 1972. The congress wing followed in 1973 - 75. For Aalto it was a major part of realizing his grand plan. The building shows many of his ongoing concerns - few right angles, design around existing trees on the site, the use of Italian marble and Finnish granite.

Finland’s Parliament House, also called Eduskuntatalo, is not only the home of the session hall that hosts the 200-seat parliament, but is also somewhat of a massive work of art within the capital of Helsinki. It’s a monumental, square building constructed in a classical style – the result of an architecture competition held in 1923 that was won by the architecture firm of Borg-Sirén-Åberg. Standing on Arcadia Hill, the exterior is dominated by strong but simple geometry, a lot of granite and tall Corinthian columns. The whole design looks more functional and industrial rather than elegant and ornate, but reflects a style that was popular in the 1920s. Noteworthy is that the building was constructed using mostly Finnish materials, such as the reddish Kalvola Granite used on the façade and furniture made of oak, curly birch and walnut.

The impressive National Museum of Finland (or Suomen Kansallismuseo) looks a bit like a Gothic church with its stonework and tower. Built in 1916 and extensively renovated in 2000, the museum's rooms cover different periods of Finnish history. The Treasure Trove has coins, silver, weaponry, medals and jewelery. The Prehistory of Finland is a large, permanent exhibition of prehistory and archaeological finds. A Land and its People shows life in Finland before industrialization. The Realm covers the history of Finland in the 13th - 17th centuries when it was under Swedish rule and an independent duchy of the Russian empire. The permanent exhibition, "Suomi Finland 1900", explores 20th-century Finland and was opened in April 2012. There are also changing displays of church relics, ethnography and cultural exhibitions.

The Kiasma Museum of Modern Art (or Nykytaiteen Museo) is housed in a curvaceous and quirky chalk-white building. It exhibits a rapidly growing collection of Finnish and international modern art from the 1960s to the 1990s. Leading Finnish artists in the permanent collection include Nina Roos, Susanne Gottberg, Jussi Nivi and the homoerotic illustrator Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland. Some of the international artists represented are Nan Goldin, Richard Serra, Andy Warhol and Cindy Sherman. In addition to its impressive collection of visual art, the Kiasma regularly presents performance art, dance, music and films. Innovative and engaging, the Kiasma is not only a world-class museum but also a laboratory for artistic experimentation and expression. The focus is definitely on the Finnish penchant for the offbeat. The cafe and beer terrace are also very popular in summer.

Helsinki City Hall, also called Kaupungintalo, didn’t always have an administrative purpose. In fact, it was originally designed as a cultural entertainment hotel by the famous German architect Carl Ludvig Engel back in 1833. The beautiful white and blue façade in the imperial style has remained, but today, most of the classical interiors have been replaced by more modern glass structures. In 1913, the former grand hotel was turned into Helsinki City Hall and although it has served as a hospital during the First World War, the building has since then hosted the offices of the mayor of Helsinki. There are also several other rooms for City Board and City Council meetings, which take place every other Wednesday in the council chamber. If you love architecture, you can simply bring your camera and wander, but visitors are also able to attend various events and exhibitions inside the building.

Founded in 1952, Kaivopuisto Park’s Café Ursula quickly grew from tiny kiosk to bustling cafe by the Baltic Sea. A summertime favorite among Helsinki locals, Café Ursula’s outdoor terrace is a popular place to sit in the fresh air with a coffee, beer or glass of wine and watch the boats ply the glittering waves to Tallinn and St. Petersburg. Summertime evening events at Café Ursula include live jazz and full moon celebrations. The self-service cafe has a popular salad buffet and also sells sandwiches, with the open-faced shrimp sandwich being especially noteworthy. Soups, cakes, pastries and ice cream are also on sale. When it’s not warm enough to sit outside on a blanket with a drink, Café Ursula is a popular place for sitting cozily indoors, looking out to the islands across the sea.

For thousands of commuters, Helsinki’s Central Railway Station is the main traffic hub from which buses, the metro and numerous local and long distance trains arrive and depart. In fact, with roughly 200,000 daily visitors, it is Finland’s most visited structure. The building also happens to be one of the landmarks of the city and looks back on over 100 years of history. Designed in 1909 by Eliel Saarinen and opened in 1919, the Railway Station’s most distinctive features are the big clock tower and the two towering figures of two heavily muscled, half-naked men holding big globes of light. Another notable feature is the red Finnish granite that was used to clad the façades of the Central Railway Station. The granite originated in Hanko, the southernmost region of Finland and is believed to be over 400 million years old.

The Mannerheim Museum is dedicated to the life and times of Finland’s national hero, Gustaf Mannerheim. As the country’s commander-in-chief during World War II, Mannerheim saved Finland from the clutches of Russia, and as the post-war president, he also managed to successfully negotiate Finland’s peace agreements with the United Kingdom and Soviet Union. Also on his impressive resume is the fact that during this lifetime, he managed to traverse 14,000 kilometers along the Silk Road from Samarkand to Beijing. The Mannerheim Museum is housed in what was once honoree’s home, which he rented from chocolate magnate Karl Fazer from 1924 until his death in 1951. The home has been preserved in its original state, and most of the furnishings date back to the 1940s. A great place to visit for anyone interested in 20th-century European history and the Finnish psyche, the museum houses Mannerheim’s basic bedroom, a collection of hundreds of medals and other honors he received.

The Ateneum Art Museum (or Konstmuseet Ateneum) houses Finnish paintings and sculptures from the 18 century to the 1950s. There's also a small, interesting collection of 19th and early-20th century foreign art, including a copy of Auguste Rodin's bronze The Thinker, and paintings by Van Gogh, Gaugin and Cézanne. The building itself dates from 1887. Downstairs is a cafe, good bookshop and reading room. The list of painters at the Ateneum reads like a 'who's who' of Finnish art, housing paintings and sculptures by Albert Edelfelt, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, the Von Wright brothers and Pekka Halonen. Pride of place goes to the prolific Gallen-Kallela's triptych from the Kalevala depicting Väinämöinen's pursuit of the maiden Aino. The Finnish National Gallery's other main museum, the Sinebrychoff, contains the largest collection of Italian, Dutch and Flemish paintings in Finland. The museum also features Russian and Karelian icons, silver, porcelain and furniture.

The Design Museum, or Taideteollisuusmuseo in Finnish, is a specialized design collection and Finland’s national design museum located in the capital Helsinki. The museum hosts an ever changing array of special exhibitions throughout the year, featuring contemporary as well as historical design from Finland and beyond. It also manages to offer a schedule choke full of various events, workshops and lectures on all things art and design. Accordingly, the art exhibited, from post-modernism to industrial, is constantly changing and with the Design Museum’s constant attention to new trends and designers, the museum is incredibly attractive to first time guests as well as repeat visitors intent on discovering new shapes, forms and perspectives.

One of the largest museums in all of Finland, the Helsinki Art Museum, is located within the Tennis Palace complex in central Helsinki. However, the museum also has a regional art museum in Uusimaa, keeps the Kluuvi Gallery, and also maintains much of the city's public domain art. The main museum itself has been located in the historic Tennis Palace space since 1999 and hosts one of the largest collections of art anywhere in all the Nordic countries. All in all, the art museum has a collection of nearly 9,000 pieces, most of which come from modern era Finland. The vast majority of the museums exhibitions are temporary, and the works found within the museum are not necessarily locked into any particular region, history, or genre. Both contemporary and modern works are displayed at the museum and art is often brought in on exchange from partners in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and elsewhere in Europe.

Established in 1969, the Museum of Technology, also called Tekiniikan Museo, is the only technology museum in Finland. The museum is operated privately by the Museum Technology Foundation which was established by a variety of engineering and industrial organizations within the city. The Museum of Technology focuses on the history of invention and innovation within the technology sector in Finland. It seeks to preserve the history of industrialization in Finland, and creates a historical lineage of industrialization in Finland dating back to its days as an agrarian society. The museum is located on a small island in the middle of the Vantaanjoki River. The island itself is incredibly important historically. It was here that the Swedish King Gustav Vasa built an administrative center and established the city of Helsinki itself in the 1500s. As the city industrialized, the shores of the river became the life-blood of the various factories and industries in the city.

Akseli Gallen-Kallela was a Finnish painter who is especially well known for his illustrations of the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. The Gallen-Kallela Museum was once his private atelier and home, and was later converted to fit Gallen-Kallela’s personal use perfectly. The studio is open, spacious and allows a lot of light to come in, but the outside of the building and the surrounding area fit in perfectly with the romantic style of the artist as well. What is today the Gallen-Kallela Museum looks a bit like a castle and sits in the midst of green gardens and quiet nature. The Gallen-Kallela Museum presents both well-known and lesser known works of the artist and also includes works from his friends. Additionally, it features contemporary art that relates to the paintings of Gallen-Kallela. Exhibitions change frequently and the museum also hosts a variety of events, such as concerts, special guided visits and even tattoo showcases and sauna sessions.

Located in the Cable Factory building in Helsinki, the Finnish Museum of Photography is the largest collection of photographic art material in Finland. The museum, which is operated and maintained by The Foundation for the Finnish Museum of Photography, holds a collection of some 3.7 million photographs submitted by artists over several decades. Established in 1969, the museum has a floor space of 900 square meters and is constantly showcasing an array of photographer's works – past and present. The museum's oldest displayed images date back as far as the 1840s. At any given time, at the Finnish Museum of Photography, there can be a variety of different exhibitions on display. There is no necessary genre that the museum focuses on and works come from both Finnish and international sources. There are exhibitions relating to fine art, photojournalism, as well as the history of photography.