Some may say this is a ghost town, I'm not very sure you could call it that way but this is…read morecertainly a very interesting experience. After a small hike you will find within the woods, abandoned houses that look almost intact. Some of them can be as old as the late 1800's but they are now part of this "ghost town" with chaos, old furniture and a lot of graffiti. Walk around, get into some houses and check the inside (be careful when going up the stairs). The view is stunning, from both the houses and the bay area. Perhaps if you live in Helsinki this can be the place to have a barbecue, it's quite interesting.

I love exploring nature reserves in urban environments and Kruunuvuori fits that bill perfectly…read more It's a forest area in East Helsinki which in the old days was used for the Helsinki population as a weekend retreat. In fact, you can still see various country houses, most of which are in a derelict state and it seems it will only take only one more winter storm for them to fold into pieces like a house built from cards. Nevertheless, Kruunuvuori, which translates as Crown Hill, is well worth a visit if you want to escape from the hectic city life and go for a stroll in the woods. The trails will lead you around in a circle and so you cannot really get lost and it all takes only 30-45 minutes to do one round. While you're walking, you will be able to enjoy nice views over Helsinki Bay and you will spot Helsinki Downtown somewhere in the distance. Now, how to get there: take the metro to "Herttoniemi" and from there catch the bus #88 and get off at the last stop. From there, I suggest you use the map of your smartphone to locate the entrance, which is marked by a barrier...beyond which is all fair game!

Wonderful nature and peace in Helsinki. Lovely place for walking and picnics. Trees, forests,…read morewater, nature. Nice open air museum and cafe, lots of happenings around the year.

June 2012. It's too…read morebeautiful to spend the day inside, so we visit Seurasaari. A century ago, an ethnographer named Axel Olai Heikel began collecting traditional Finnish structures out on this island. Sweden already had an open-air museum like that (Swedes!), so Heikel decided that Finland should have one, too. The number 24 bus drops us off at the entrance an hour before the island closes, so we rush to the ticket booth and grab a map, hoping to squeeze as much of Finland's glorious architectural heritage as we can into sixty minutes. We read that there are historical re-enactors in the buildings, so we're expecting a Finnish version of Colonial Williamsburg, with artisanal baking demonstrations and maybe some farriery or blacksmithing. Coopering. That kind of thing. But the re-enactors we encounter are mostly high school kids with attitude whose summer job is to hang out on the island wearing period costumes and make sure no one tags the traditional structures or steals stuff. We hustle through a series of smoke cabins, crofter's dwellings, granaries, and farmyards. We glimpse a wooden church. We spot a parsonage. We read that many of these buildings are the last surviving examples of early 19th-century Finnish architecture. They're lovely, these rustic wooden structures with elegant joinery and stripped down minimalism that look like something Alvar Aalto might have built if he'd been a crofter.

Mountain Man Gardens This place is named after the mountain…read moreman- get grizzly and rugged out here. This small park is rather urban- right off of the #1 and #2 streetcar lines. There is a playground on this place, but the gate seems to have been frozen shut when I went, but some kids managed to smash through the ice and open it up. There's lots and snow and ice here when it's cold. I'd recommend crampons, since the sidewalks aren't salted or anything. It's an average park- not too special. It has some trees to it, and some lackluster landscaping. There's plenty of places to grab a bite around here for a good picnic. Don't go out of your way for this park, but it's okay to go check out if you happen to be in the neighborhood.