HelsinkiTravel Guide

The sea fortress spread across a cluster of islands at the harbour mouth is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and also a working neighbourhood: somewhere around eight hundred people live there, with a shop, a school and rubbish collection.

Finland's second-oldest town, and the least demanding half-day on this list.

Around two hours across the Gulf of Finland, and a complete change of scene: another country, another language family, noticeably lower prices, and a walled medieval trading city that UNESCO inscribed for how completely it survived.

Roughly an hour from the centre by public transport, and the clearest, quickest answer to the question of what Finnish nature actually looks like: granite ridges scraped bare by ice, spruce forest, and small dark lakes in the hollows between them.

The creamy salmon soup — salmon, potato, leek, dill, a slick of butter — is Helsinki's defining lunch.

A thin rye crust crimped around rice porridge, eaten warm with munavoi — chopped-egg butter.

On the cobbled Kauppatori at the harbour's edge, summer stalls fry vendace — tiny lake fish eaten whole — and pile strawberries, chanterelles and hot doughnut-like munkki.

Be brave: salmiakki, Finland's salty ammonium-chloride liquorice, divides humanity into devotees and victims.

Hotel Kamp, on the Esplanadi since the late nineteenth century, is the historic address: gilt, marble and a place in Finnish cultural memory as the gathering point for the artists and composers of the country’s national-romantic era.

Helsinki does this exceptionally well, which is unsurprising in a city with a Design District.

Sokos Hotel Torni dates from the 1930s and was for years the tallest building in Helsinki.

Finnish chain hotels are genuinely good, and this is where most visitors should look.