Usually in Helsinki we stay in quiet, old neighborhoods as close to the city center as possible. That’s what we did this time for our first stay, but for the final stay we booked an Airbnb apartment in Vuosaari, the Eastern terminus of the metro line. Early in our vacation we made a daytrip to Uutela Nature Park next to Vuosaari, and thought it would be nice area to stay for a few days, right next to the nature and the sea. Our apartment was located on the ground floor at the right end of the building pictured on the far left below.

We made three nature walks in the Vuosaari area. We visited Uutela Nature Park before heading to Eastern Finland. The original plan was to hike in Nuuksio National Park, but we could not figure out how to get there, so we chose a destination closer to “home.”

The second hike took us to Vuosaarenhuippu (‘Vuosaari Summit’), a former landfill/(land) construction waste dumping site that has been landscaped and transformed into a nature park.

On our last day in Helsinki we waited well into afternoon for the rain to stop before heading out to to visit Meri-Rastila’s ancient rocky seashore that is not really near the sea these days.

One final post, Summer Suomi (Food) is about — food.