EXTRA DAY OFF THIS WEEK......

Every 6th Saturday, Wayne and I get a 'day off' to go where we want to go (at our own expense, of course). Today was that day! It was a beautiful 'summer' day.....although it started out on the cool side, it ended up being quite warm.....and mostly sunny!! All the Finns were out enjoying the weather as much as we were. This is not going to last forever.....will start getting cold before too long!!

We had made reservations several months ago to take a FERRY BOAT TO PORVOO from Helsinki. We had heard it was a nice 3 hour ride through the ARCHIPELAGO! It was very, very nice and relaxing. The boat traffic getting out of the HELSINKI HARBOR was a bit on the heavy side however.

The HELSINKI TORI was active with lots of people as well........and we did a little shopping there before boarding our boat.

Our boat was the J. L. RUNEBERG......a replica of an old steam engine that used to make the trek back and forth from Helsinki and Porvoo.

We got great seats.....on the top deck and right in front of the captain's 'steering thingie'!!

We even enjoyed some accordion music along the way.....this guy was great!

Once arriving in Porvoo we decided to 'divide and conquer'.......Wayne wanted to go see the museums and historical stuff. I, of course, wanted to shop!!! No surprise there. Here is a small TORI in part of the old town section of town......not as big as Helsinki but nice nonetheless!!

Loved the beautiful pots of flowers everywhere!!

And Wayne got some great shots while on his little 'self-guided tour'. He tried to catch a 'regular tour' but missed it. He probably was able to see more this way.

We had a late lunch at this little CAFE......sat on the little side porch with all of the beautiful flowers. We had SALMON and POTATOES of course!! It was so good......

No meal 'out' is ever complete without a cone of ICE CREAM for dessert!! Today was no exception to that!!

We decided to take the EXPRESS BUS home so we would have more time in Porvoo (instead of the allotted 2 hours that the round-trip ferry would have given us). It was a much quicker trip.....but along the way we saw more FINNISH STATUES!!! No surprise there....now these looked like RABBIT HEADS / EARS to us! What do you think!!

Among the many purchases we made (or should I say 'I' made) we discovered this

BRUNBERG CANDY

OH MY.......MORE GOOD FINNISH CANDY!!

One can never, never have too much good Finnish-Made Candy on hand. This absolutely melts in your mouth.

After having left our apartment at 8:00 a.m. this morning, we finally arrived back home at about 7:15 p.m. GREAT DAY.....but we, admittedly, are totally exhausted.

Tomorrow, Sunday, we are speaking in LAHTI......better get some rest and get prepared!