Day Trips from Helsinki, Finland

For our first trip to Finland, we decided to focus on the southern part of the country. We made Helsinki our homebase for the week and spent our time exploring the city and some of the surrounding islands as well as taking day trips via train to nearby cities of interest. If you're looking for …

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Exploring Islands Around Helsinki, Finland

I am embarrassed to admit that until I started researching things to do during our week in Helsinki, Finland, I didn't know that Finland has the world's largest archipelago with more than 80,000 islands off its coastline. Mind blown. Of course we had to add visiting some of these islands to our itinerary! With only …

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A Sunday in Ballard: Farmers Markets and Nordic Heritage

Several months ago I came across an ad in one of my magazines about a Marimekko exhibit coming to Seattle! I’m not into fashion, but I was familiar with Marimekko because their beautiful, colorful patterns often appear on Crate&Barrel items like bedding and shower curtains, several of which I’ve purchased. I knew they were based …

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