Iceland and the ferry journey to get there were probably the main point of my holiday. But Iceland was by no means the only destination. As I mentioned briefly in the first post I was in Denmark. Before that I'd passed through Stockholm. Maybe more on them later.
But after Iceland my next destination was Helsinki. My early flight on Iceland Air took me via CPH. Not sure if I got any photos of the airport there, may post one if I find anything interesting. My brief stopover at CPH, just an hour or two to kill, gave me time to take advantage of my Star Alliance Gold status, courtesy of the Avianca Brazil status match. No issues getting into the very nice SAS lounge, with access to the more fancy upstairs area. Great buffet, great and wide variety of drinks including spirits. Lots of typically Scandi white and pale colours. Good wifi.
From CPH it was a short flight on SAS to Helsinki. I missed out on getting flight 666 to HEL, but only because SAS was a bit cheaper than AY.
Somewhere over Finland. It looks cold out there. That's because it was cold out there!
Helsinki was the coldest place I visited on this trip. It was a brisk -21c at the airport when I arrived. This arrival was easy and quick. A week or two earlier when I arrived from Tokyo I was given extra-special attention by a team of three customs officers who waited for me to get my bag from the carousel before swooping in and whisking me away to a side room for a very thorough search of my luggage, including removing the lining of the suitcase. The bottle of multivitamins I had was very suspicious, it seems. They were maybe disappointed that they found nothing nor any good reason to detain me any longer and, at that time, seemed grudgingly satisfied that I was going straight on to Stockholm. Oh, and apparently it was also suspicious that I'd spent an overnight stopover in Tokyo en route. Anyway, no matter. It was an interesting experience and helped pass some time. It occurs to me that I was once subjected to a similar search in Bali a year before that..
HEL airport isn't too far out of the city and I fancied that I could begin my sightseeing from a taxi, so that's how I got from airport to hotel. I stayed at the Hilton Strand. I loved it. my room wasn't huge, but the view down the frozen harbour was wonderful. I liked the setup of the room too, with the bed and desk both facing the windows. It was just really pleasant.
