Ye Olde Townes

Fiskars

Last Thursday, I went along on a short day trip with the American Women's Club to the Village of Fiskars which is about an hour drive southwest of Helsinki. Fiskars is a beautiful old industrial village that has been nicely preserved by converting it into an artisans community and tourist attraction. You may have heard of Fiskars due to their fine Fiskars Oy scissors, cutlery, knives and other fine metalwork. They have a very well done history titled Fiskars 1649 [pdf] that covers 350 years of Finnish industrial history and a walk through the various buildings in town. The Onoma Gallery and the Fiskars Museum [suomi or svenska only] also have informative websites.

My 10D is in the shop getting repaired since it suffers from the same problems a large percentage of 10D owners are complaining about, broken AF and random crashing, so I only had my little 2MP Elph along to take pictures. The Mill and the Granary are constructed of slag bricks which lends a volcanic texture to the buildings. The stream that runs through the town is flanked with all sorts of local arts and sculpture. We were a bit on the off-season since Winter is approaching but we did get to see an iron smith and a glassmaker working in their shops. Fiskars is a beautiful slice of Finnish history which the town has done a remarkable job in restoring while making it commercially viable instead of leaving it to ruin as such small towns so often are once much of the industry moves on.

A Day Trip to Tallinn

On Saturday, Jarkko and I travelled with a visiting colleague from Boston to Tallinn, Estonia which is a short 1.5 hour ferry trip away from Helsinki. Estonia is to Helsinki what border towns in the US are to Canada, cheap shopping along with cheap smokes and booze. We only wandered around the Old Town of Tallinn, a Medieval town complete with walls and fortifications from the 1200s. Much of the town has remained largely intact and is on the UNESCO preservation list. The language they speak is Estonian which is related, if not closely, to Finnish and it's a bit disorienting to see things that at first seem Finnish only to find that they're really Estonian.

One thing in Old Town is the number of churches and everywhere you look there is a spire. Many of them are centuries old and have accreted a wide range of architectural styles in additions over time which is sometimes curious in the question of taste and suitability.

tallinn.info and tourism.tallinn.ee have some lovely photos and more information on the history of the city.