AH HELL! We're sinking!
We're the Vagabrothers, and this is Helsinki Finland.
[intro sound]
Sorry that was a really lame joke [yeah].
It's actually a really cool city.
Helsinki is the capital city of Finland,
home to about one in every five Fins.
Small, compact and full of style,
this waterfront city opens up to the Baltic Sea
and bridges Scandinavia to the west and Russia to the east.
In fact, forgetting independence a hundred years ago,
Finland was caught
between the empires of Sweden and Russia.
And Helsinki is a product of the push and pull of empire
growing up around the floating fortress of Soumenlinna,
fifteen minutes by ferry from downtown Helsinki.
'So-one-milena' as it's pronounced is a UNESCO World Heritage site that was
built by the Swedish,
captured by the Russians,
and finally taken back by the Fins
who opened it up to the public.
But we didn't come here just to float around on an island;
we came here to visit Helsinki,
one the most stylish cities in Europe.
Fins are known for their design legacy,
which is rooted in simplicity and puts function over form.
It's something you see just walking down the street:
from the renovated
historical buildings of the Tori Quarter,
to the modernist buildings from nineteen thirties,
and more recent additions
like the Chapel of Silence.
These days Finnish design translates into
sustainable street style:
something that
Visit Helsinki showed us
right when we arrived by hooking us up
with a grab-bag of local apparel,
including Costo backpacks made from recycled denim
and wooden sunglasses from Pollot.
So we headed over to Tori Quarters in Helsinki's
design district to meet with
Hannes Bengs [Hello]
founder of Costo who spoke to us
about Helsinki's style in general and his project in particular.
Growing up in Finland, it's always been a big thing actually,
ecological environment
nature and everything about it, so it's a normal thing for me.
But you can't be too hip, too trendy because otherwise it won't last.
The trend goes, you know, it lasts for half a year.
You have to have the classic design too.
We produce all of our caps
and other accessories, all of our industrial and raw materials,
like the fabrics is from sofa factories,
small pieces that they can't use in in the industry.
That emphasis of quality over quantity is
also shaping another aspect of Helsinki's culture
Cuisine!
where a new generation of young chefs is shaking up Finnish food
by focusing on local, organic produce,
the best of which is found in the recently renovated
Old Market Hall where we shopped around for some cured salmon
and spoke with some of the local fish mongers.
I love that word.
The traditional cured salmon is just a fresh salmon fillet,
and on top you've got sugar,
sea salt,
and dill.
And then you leave it.
The next day it, will be ready to be sliced and eaten.
Before leaving the market we stopped for a light bite at Story
where we ordered traditional dishes like cabbage casserole and salmon soup
before speaking with the head chef Teemu Aura.
The food is quite simple, a lot of natural ingredients:
less on the blade and more in to the flavour,
and more in the story of the ingredients.
But that just whetted our appetite for more.
So we ordered takeaway lunches from Sun Restaurant
and had a gorgeous picnic in the park.
After lunch we treated ourselves to another Finnish specialty,
Chocolate
before heading over to Cocoa Coffee Shop to experience
Helsinki's famous café culture over coffee and cakes.
Serbuk,
Lingonberry in chocolate
And blueberry with liquorice rum
We had heard that Finns drank more coffee
than anyone else in the world,
So we asked the owner why Finns were so obsessed with coffee.
Wherever you go they always offer you coffee,
so it's coffee all over.
Well I think what also we are trying to do is drink less
but high-quality.
But of course we still want to have more and more
high quality coffee shops in town.
We caught one more coffee at the iconic Café Regatta,
which overlooks the Baltic Sea and some of Helsinki's beaches.
Yes, they have beaches.
It was so hot we even did some supping,
stand up paddling [SUP] on the Baltic Sea.
In summer it never really gets dark here,
which means most of the drinking is done in daylight,
which made it pretty easy to find our friend Eva
and local drinks blogger Ilkka Sirén
who took us on a pub crawl through the Bohemian neighbourhood of Kallio
So Kallio was
this sort of a working-class district in Helsinki,
but now-a-days, it's a very sort of a young,
hipster kind of a neighborhood
with a lot of cool restaurants opening up here,
a lot of good clubs.
The younger generation travels all the time,
and with that I think with the food and
then comes obviously with drinks as well.
So they learn it and when they come back
here, they really sort of
try to make it happen here, as well.
If you like great cocktails or great wine, great beer,
there's definitely a bar for you in Helsinki.
All right, cool ,so where's the next place?
So next place is quick.
We're going to go drink some Finnish beers.
Okay [Yeah] sounds good.
In the past few years,
I think the demand also for good quality beer,
so craft breweries,
have been really booming.
It's, I think, a world -wide phenomenon.
People are really getting the same sort of geeky enthusiasim
as many wine people have about wine,
and now we are, as well.
We're getting geeky with our beer,
but we spent less time with our noses in our glasses
and more time with the glasses to the lips.
[Absolutely] Cheers
Beer is meant to be enjoyed.
That's right.
It was a late night with Ilkkas,
and after a week running around Finland,
and a couple of days in Helsinki,
we were in desperate need of some relaxation.
So we met up with Ollie from Feel The Nature Tours
who took us to a peaceful
lakeside cottage in nearby Nooksio National Park
to show us just how close Helsinki is to nature.
Dude, just went fishing. Now it's time to pop in the sauna.
We going to do it Finnish style.
Naked! [Laughing]
We wonder why people think we're a gay couple.
We're actually just brothers.
I think it's because we're well dressed.
Yeah [laughing]
After a couple of sessions in the sauna,
it was time for a nice barbecue
overlooking the lake with the beautiful sunset.
The perfect ending to our time in Finland.
Thanks for watching and big thanks to Visit Helsinki and Visit Finland
for making this entire trip possible.
If this video inspired your trip to Finland,
check the info-box below for links to their web pages.
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We really appreciate your help in growing this project.
All right. If you have any other tips for us in Helsinki,
write your thoughts below in the comments box
or tweet us on social media @Vagabrothers.
That's all for this week!
Make sure you guys tune in next week,
and as always, see you on the road.
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