I was thrilled when I woke up to learn my flight out of Helsinki-Vantaa Airport was delayed. That meant my Helsinki stopover just got a little longer! It was my first time ever leaving the airport in the middle of an international itinerary, and I didn’t yet realize how much was in store: an amazing Finnish breakfast, culture on the escalator, sexy statues, a boat ride to a bucolic island and more!
Why you should plan a Helsinki stopover
To be honest, I ended up spending one day in Helsinki a little bit by accident. I’ve wanted to plan a long layover for some time — you know, when you leave the airport during a stopover to enjoy a bonus city in the middle of a trip? And although Helsinki is not really on the way (to anywhere), it was in fact where my flight from Oslo to Barcelona was stopping.
I went in knowing only that Finland is considered one of the happiest countries on earth. I ended my longer-than-expected visit knowing that Helsinki is — just maybe — the most perfect stopover city in Europe.
My flight left Oslo at 8:45 p.m. and landed in Helsinki at 11:10 p.m. It’s only an hour and a half flying time, but it’s an hour later in Helsinki than it is in Oslo. My connection should have left Helsinki for Barcelona at 5 p.m. the next day.
I didn’t know exactly how things would go, but I had a rough plan: Explore Oslo all day, then fly to Helsinki and spend the night at an airport hotel. In the morning, train into Helsinki, spend a few hours sightseeing, then head back to the airport by around 3 p.m. for my onward flight. Due to my flight delay, things didn’t go down exactly like that! But actually, the way things played out made my Helsinki layover even better.
Reason 1 why you should plan a Helsinki layover: Convenient airport lodging
When you land in a foreign city late at night, “hotel” is a welcome sign to see at the airport. Why don’t more airports have a hotel? Actually, Helsinki’s airport has more than one hotel! You just stroll along a corridor, go through a set or two of glass doors, following the signs, and boom: You’re at the check-in desk.
I chose the less expensive lodging, the Comfort Hotel Helsinki Airport. I landed at 11:10 p.m., disembarked, and walked up to the check-in desk at midnight. The desk clerk welcomed me with a smile. One hour after touching ground, I collapsed onto a very comfortable bed. Unlike the hotels I stayed at in Norway, my Finnish hotel room had the kind of powerful air conditioning that we’re used to in American hotels. I slept like the dead.
Besides my nice room, I really liked the Comfort Hotel’s clean and friendly lobby. It had a washer and dryer for guest use, for a 5 Euro fee. Plenty of sitting areas and a restroom. In the morning, the front desk staff cheerfully unlocked the luggage room for me to stow my carry-on.
For the price I paid — only €80.00 ($94.50)!– I didn’t expect breakfast. I would have been thrilled with a free cup of coffee.
So imagine my surprise when I walked into the included breakfast buffet!
Scandinavian hotel breakfasts in general are wonderful, but this one surpassed most of the breakfasts I’d enjoyed in Norway. Multiple long tables held many kinds of bread and pastries, porridges, hot food such as eggs and potatoes, sandwiches with cheeses and cold cuts, and on and on.
I got to try Finnish foods I’d never heard of, such as karelian pasties (karjalanpiirakka) — rye dumplings with a rice porridge filling, with egg butter. Yes, butter with a touch of scrambled eggs, basically. It was interesting, and really not bad. They also had both drip coffee and espresso drinks. I stuffed myself and — yes — packed a lunch to go. There were staff circulating, but none objected to me packing a few sandwiches.
(By the way, the buffet was at the Clarion, the more expensive airport hotel. But the Comfort Inn had an arrangement with the Clarion, so we peasants got to eat there too. All I had to do to gain admission to this wonderland of breakfast chow was tell the staff my room number.)
Reason 2 for a Helsinki stop-over: Easy transportation from Helsinki Airport to downtown Helsinki
The Helsinki airport is only 11 miles from the middle of town. If you’ve traveled in Northern Europe, you won’t be shocked that the train station is connected to the airport. But even after enjoying convenient transit in other Scandinavian capitals, I gotta say that Helsinki’s airport-to-train-station link is even better. Why? Well, the dancing.
As I descended a long escalator to the train station, through a starkly asthetic stone shaft, a giant video screen played a local modern dance performance. I happened to be descending alone, so it felt like a command performance.
The train was clean and comfortable. Buying a ticket, quick and easy. Like in other Scandinavian cities, the train station runs on the honor system, with no fare gates. The passengers on the uncrowded, quiet train seemed calm and content. We passed many trees.
In under an hour, I was in Central Helsinki, admiring the central train station’s grand architecture and wandering around the Railroad Square.
Reason 3 to make a pit stop in Helsinki: Walkable tourist area
Maybe I should have signed up for a last-minute Helsinki city tour. But I decided to explore on my own, using an old Rick Steves Scandinavia guide. I’m a terrible navigator, but downtown Helsinki is easy. After a few hours of wandering around, I had the place down pat.
First, I admired the central railway station, and the tall, long-haired statues guarding its entrance. You can just feel the blondness etched in stone.
Railroad Square was strangely large and empty, giving me quasi-Soviet vibes. I wandered toward a patch of green in the distance and ended up sitting on a bench at a botanical garden. Then I ambled along the river, watching a couple guys varnish a small wooden yacht, the fresh coat of finish glossy in the morning sun.
I checked out the Helsinki and Upsenski cathedrals, which face one another.
I browsed the open air Kauppatori market and stumbled into the old food hall without even knowing it was there. The creamy salmon soup, cinammon rolls and open-face sandwiches on rye bread all looked and smelled amazing. Sadly, I had stuffed my face at the Clarion hotel’s breakfast, so I had no appetite to taste these delights. I enjoyed a good cappucino, though.
When my phone alerted me that my flight time was moving back again, giving me even more time to explore, I bought a ticket to the Suomenlinna Sea Fortress (only $3.75 and good for 90 minutes, so if you only stay an hour it’s a round trip fare). I sailed away from the city at the golden hour. Landing on Suomenlinna, I started out in a crowd, but quickly hiked my way into solitude.
I walked the island paths to King’s Gate, a landing at the opposite end of the island. It was a beautiful summer evening, and the vibe was chill.
I passed a number of restaurants on the island full of empty outdoor tables, even though it was Friday night. Why were people not crowding these charming spots?
Back in Helsinki, I took the tram toward the train station, planning to get to the airport early and use my meal voucher for dinner. But then I realized that if I stayed on the tram a couple more stops, I could enjoy one last sight: Temppeliaukio Church, aka “The Church in the Rock.” I had missed its open hours, but I walked all over it and peeked inside to see a stunning view of a sanctuary carved out of stone. A few locals sat on the rock to share wine and chat.
After disembarking the tram near the train station, I stumbled across two sights I had managed to miss all day: Stockman’s Department Store the Three Smiths Statue. The latter features three muscular nude men. Hubba hubba! 😂
I also passed a delightfully cheesy-looking place called Harald’s Viking Restaurant. It looked expensive, but still, I wished I could stay and have a drink there.
Reason 4 that Helsinki makes a great stop-over: The shopping
Even though I knew I was going to be stopping over in the middle of my flight itinerary, I made a rookie mistake: I checked my suitcase and forgot to put a change of clothes in my carry-on. So I spent much of my Helsinki day walking around in the same pants and long-sleeve tee that I’d flown in. As the day grew sunnier, I got hot.
So I started shopping. While nothing is cheap in Scandinavia, I actually made a few purchases in Helsinki. They have so many cute printed textiles. I browsed the Markimekko store, but I ended up buying a printed dishtowel at a different shop, and a summer dress at yet another boutique. The kind staff allowed me to use their changing room to put the dress on right after I bought it.
But the shopping that impressed me most was the underwear shop right outside security at the airport. This makes so much sense! It honestly made me wish my much-delayed flight would just get canceled so I could buy some clean undies and spend another night at the Comfort Inn.
Reason 5 to spend a day in Helsinki: The language
Unsurprisingly, I had no trouble getting my questions answered in English whenever I needed help. But I also found myself beguiled by the Finnish language. I had always thought that Finnish looked bizarre and bore no resemblance to the other Scandinavian languages.
But starting with the train ride, I noticed that every sign and place name was both in Finnish and Swedish. This helped me notice how the languages were similar. After spending a couple of weeks in Norway, I was even able to figure out the meanings of a few signs here.
For example, I had learned that “gatan” in Norwegian means not “gate” but “street.” That can be confusing to English speakers, because a street is not a gate. But you do hear “gate” meaning “street” used in some places in England, and many in Scotland. So it’s not totally out of left field. In Finland, if a place name ended in “gatan” in Swedish, I noticed that the same name ended in “katu” in Finnish. So now I understood: In Finnish, “katu” = “street.”
I was even able to connect some Finnish words I saw directly to English. See this sign at the market?
“Kantarellit” = “chanterelle.”
On the other hand, many Finnish words do seem to come completely out of left field. For instance, the ticket machine at the train station says “biljjetter,” in Swedish, which makes sense to me, because a ticket in French is a “billet.” But in the Finnish part, it says “liput.” Why would a ticket be called a “liput?” (Well, I looked it up. “Liput” not only means “tickets” but also “flags,” “banners” or “small pieces of paper.” And it’s an onomatopoeia, taken from the sound a flag flapping in the wind. Now you know!)
Reason 6 to for a Helsinki stopover: The people
It was no surprise to meet a lot of blond people in Finland. But I was surprised to meet a lot of people who were distinctly not blond. In fact, the local population looked quite diverse. The beautiful and kind young woman who checked me in at the hotel was Black. I noticed moms in hijab, both on the island and on the train, with large families of rambunctious kids. All the kids I saw were bright eyed and active, with no devices in sight.
A little research told me that Finland doesn’t keep records on their population’s ethnicity or race. But they have had increasing immigration in recent years, with more than 10% of the population now foreign-born.
A lot of immigrants to Sweden come from the former Soviet Union countries, but some also come from the Middle East, Asia and even Africa. There are even a few thousand immigrants from the United States every year.
Overall, I found the people in Helsinki not overly chatty, but helpful when asked. And no one was rude or impatient with me at all.
Reason 7 to fly through Helsinki: The helpful airport staff
One of the nicest and most helpful people I met was a woman at the Finn Air check-in desk. I woke up that morning to the notification that my 5 p.m. flight was now to depart at 10:40 p.m.! Since my hotel was at the airport, I stopped at check-in before heading to the train station to see if there was any update or explanation.
The screens at the airport at that point claimed that my flight had no reschedule time. The lady who helped me made some phone calls and asked around, and got me the full 411: My plane, a shuttle that runs between Barcelona and Helsinki, had a maintenance issue. The flight might take off later tonight, but only if they successfully fixed it and flew it here from Barcelona.
The lady helpfully explained to me that, due to the delay, I had a meal voucher loaded onto my boarding pass.
Reason 8 to stop in Helsinki: Vantaa is a nice airport
Later that day, I got an email that my flight was now scheduled for 11:15 p.m. I showed up at the airport around 9 p.m., hoping that the restaurant there that sells fish soup was still open. After all, it didn’t feel like night — all the windows were ablaze with a beautiful sunset. Alas, all the restaurants selling cooked food were closed. A number of restaurants and shops still operated, but they were selling pre-packaged salads and the like. You could get a toasted sandwich, but that was about it for hot food.
Still, what they had available was delicious. As the sky outside finally paled into darkness, the Schengen area of the airport was empty except for the people on my flight.
We had plenty of open cafes to choose from. I chose salmon salad and a glass of pinot noir. A single young woman was working doubletime both closing up the restaurant and dealing with the all the voucher-weilding late-night passengers. When she rang me up, she informed me that my boarding pass actually held two meal vouchers! She let me apply both to my meal and drink. That took 33 Euros of my bill, so I only paid a dollar or two.
Then when she was about to close she warned everyone so we could order a last drink if we wanted. Super nice!
Another delay. We were now supposed to be leaving at 12:05 a.m.
Ever more dubious that I’d be leaving Helsinki tonight, I had plenty of time to walk around the airport, which was airy and lovely. There were wide chaise lounge type couches which probably would have been comfortable to sleep on. I kind of wished I could try them out — but then my plane arrived!
I think a lot of people must have rescheduled, because once I boarded, I found the flight to be pretty empty, giving me room to stretch out and sleep as best I could. I was sorry to see the last of Helsinki! I need to go back, of course, to try their salmon soup.
A final note: While Scandinavia is expensive in general, my 24 hours in Helsinki didn’t add that much expense to my trip: Only about $228.
Here’s what I paid for:
- Comfort Inn Hotel with breakfast: $94.50
- Boat ticket to the fortress island: $3.78
- Public transit: $14
- Souvenir tea towel: $20
- Cute dress: $75
- Prosecco at airport $14
- Cappucino: $5.28
- Dinner (including a glass of wine) after two meal vouchers: $1.65
And because of European passenger protection laws, my long delay resulted in a payment to me from Finn Air. They just sent me a gift card worth $731! (If I decide to convert it to cash, I’ll get only $548.) So basically I made money by making a Helsinki stopover!
The only downside to this whole escapade was arriving in Barcelona at around 3:30 a.m. local time, which turned out to be a pretty big downside. But I’ll save that story for another day!
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