We arrived in Helsinki at 10 in the morning, a much more respectable time!!

We managed to find a map and decided it was close enough to walk from the ferry port to the centre. This meant we got to see a bit of the town as well. We were wandering through the back streets and found ourselves in front of the cathedral which was out of this world. Just from that sight alone we all decided Helsinki was the most amazing place we'd seen so far.

We walked around to get a better look and in the square in front on the cathedral was an amazing art exhibition called the Buddy Bears. 142 countries had decorated a bear to represent themselves and the bears stand in a circle to represent peace in the world. The artwork on the bears was fantastic and we has lots of fun searching for England's bear. Cuba was a favourite as he had a massive cigar in his mouth. The exhibit began in 2002 and has travelled the world to raise money for UNICEF.

After that we headed to the train station to buy our tickets to St. Petersburg. The train we needed wasn't until 3.30pm so it meant we had some time to spend sight seeing. We wandered back around the city and went to the market for lunch where Tom ate reindeer and me and Laura at least tried it!

After finishing lunch we had a bit more of an explore and ended up in the Helsinki city museum. It was a bit small but we learnt a lot about the history of the city and its role in various wars so was definitely worth a look.

By this point there wasn't much time left before the train. However, the national gallery was next to the station so we decided to pop in to kill our last few minutes.

The majority of the artwork was truly awful. Videos of women with their heads on piles of fruit were the highlight. However there was one room full of multi-coloured ribbons (see photo) you could run through. After Sarah charged in giggling and tried to get us to find her, we carried on to the station to catch our train to Russia!