Finland and Sweden trip recap

Hi sew-friends! Today I’m sharing a short recap of the trip I took to Finland, Tallinn and Stockholm in July of this year. This was a particularly special trip because I spent it with family and friends. One of our friends is originally from Finland, so we got a personal tour from a real Finn. It was a really special trip that I’ll always cherish.

We spent the majority of our time in Finland, with about three days in Helsinki and four days on a road trip around Finland. The last few trips I’ve taken have been focused on cities so it was great to get out of the city and see some countryside. Helsinki is not a very large city so you can easily see the big sites in just two or three days.

We found it easy to take the trams or walk most places. Above is a map of my favorite sites in Helsinki plus some fabric/craft stores. If you are visiting Helsinki and want to go fabric shopping, make sure to check out my Helsinki fabric shopping guide. To best view the map, I recommend clicking the “View larger map” button in the top right of the map.

Finland is a really beautiful country and packed full of lakes. If you have time, I recommend venturing outside of Helsinki to see some of its gorgeous countryside. There are beautiful beaches, mountains and the most peaceful lakes I’ve ever had to pleasure of visiting.

We were there the first two weeks of July and it felt like it never truly became dark. (If you’ve been to Alaska in the summer, it’s similar.) The sun would “set” around 11pm and rise around 4am. It was a little disorienting to not have night time and when I returned home to a dark sky I was startled. It had been so long since I’d seen it dark outside.

Finland was really great for gluten free food. Most menus had a code to show which items were gluten or lactose free (usually marked with a G or L). And if menus were not marked, the waitstaff were always very helpful and had options. It made traveling there so much easier. The only other place I’ve been that was this easy to navigate was Ireland. (That said, I have heard that other places are getting better all the time, which is really great news! Barcelona also had a lot of fantastic gluten-free restaurants but in general their menus were not marked with allergens.)

I loved trying the Finnish cuisine and really took to their unusual flavors. I’m totally down with salty black licorice (salmiakki), pickled and smoked fish and sour milk (kefir). If you like black licorice, then this will be heaven for you. They even have black licorice flavored ice cream!

Tallinn, Estonia

While staying in Helsinki, we did a day trip to Tallinn, Estonia. There are frequent ferries between the two cities. The journey takes about 2 hours so it’s a very easy day trip or side trip from Helsinki. I really loved Tallinn and would love to spend more time there exploring the city. It’s just the most charming old city that I’ve ever visited. If I had it to do over again, I’d stay overnight so that I could spend two days there.

After our Finland adventures, we took the overnight ferry from Helsinki to Stockholm. There are a couple of different cruise lines and we took Viking. I highly recommend doing this ferry. It was pretty affordable and super fun. Plus a very efficient way to travel. The scenery, especially as you approach Stockholm is beautiful and the ferry is just really fun. I was worried about it rocking a lot and not being able to sleep but I didn’t have any problems sleeping. Nor did we have any problems with sea sickness. The journey was very smooth and comfortable. I also recommend their buffet dinner and breakfast. There were so many new foods to try. Again. Super fun.

The ferry deposited us in Stockholm around 11am so we were able to spend a good amount of time in the city that day. Stockholm was a really beautiful and easy to navigate but more crowded with tourists than Finland. The two design/fashion related sights I did in Stockholm were the ABBA museum which has a lot of great costumes and the Nordic museum which to my surprise had a lot of design and handcraft exhibits. Plus what seemed to be a temporary exhibit of 1950s fashion. We were only in Stockholm for two days and I was starting to feel fatigued by the end of the trip so I definitely need to go back to Sweden to see more. There were many parts of Stockholm that I didn’t make it to, as well as everything outside the city, so I hope to one day make it back there.