How many hours should I consider allowing to visit Suomenlinna and Seurasaari islands?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 21 Jul, 2023
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I wrote a blog post about my trip to Suomelinna – it’s doable as a half day trip, if you want, but you could also take a picnic and enjoy the grassy areas if it’s nice and sunny (beware, it was freezing with an off-shore breeze in summer when I was there).
The boat takes 15-20 minutes including boarding.
Wikitravel has several guides for Helsinki – including when you only have a certain amount of time – ranging from just two hours in Helsinki, to two days or longer. I used this as a great guide when I went around as it gives you a good route. They recommend the fortress even as a ferry ride alone, even if you only have a few hours.
For Seurasaari, they point out that you need at least half a day. Given your time schedule, you may wish to consider dropping this part of your trip and exploring downtown Helsinki more – there’s a LOT to see and enjoy.
Seurasaari is quite similar to Suomenlinna, only smaller. A straight circuit of the island on foot takes about an hour, but there are plenty of interesting old buildings to poke your nose into (most free, a few not), a couple of nice rustic cafes and even two nudist beaches (one for men, one for women), so it’s easy to spend half a day here as well.
Most visitors opt to get there on bus 24 from the city, but my favorite way of getting to Seurasaari is on foot, since it’s a nice, easy walk and there are a whole bunch of interesting places along the way. Here’s a half-day itinerary I wrote a while back for Wikivoyage:
http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/A_seaside_stroll_in_Helsinki
And oh, don’t try to cover both islands in one day, that’s too much. If you have to pick only one, my guests have usually found Seurasaari to be the more interesting/”authentically Finnish” of the two. And while neither is particularly enjoyable if the weather is poor, Suomenlinna’s exposed position means it’s actively terrible if it’s cold, windy and/or rainy.
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I can at least answer the question for Suomenlinna. Take the ferry over there which takes approximately 15 minutes and leaves quite regularly from Helsinki’s city center (Market Square).
Then it really depends on your taste. You can easily spend a whole day on Suomenlinna. There are bars where you can get a drink, very tasty restaurants, some museums and you could also spend the whole day sun-bathing and swimming around the small beaches at Suomenlinna.
But if you just want to stroll around the island, get a drink/snack and relax quickly at the beach, I would say half a day (~4 hours) is enough.
(When I was there last year we spent around 4 hours there and in my opinion we have seen everything important, and we also spend some time at the beach and in a bar.)
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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