Helsinki has until now been a well-kept secret, a real gem in the Baltic waiting to be discovered. This beautiful city with its wonderful parks, superb architecture and great places to eat, drink and be merry is becoming a favourite among tourists from all over the world who love the Finnish capital for its compact size and safety. Now the trendsetters have also started discovering this “remarkably cutting edge city”.

The locals take the city’s newfound popularity in their stride and continue to go about their business unperturbed by the hoards that pour out from the buses, cruise ships and ferries everyday.

This is a city of contrasts where the old and the new merge in a seamless fashion. Where else would you see a trendy blond model with a cell phone in one hand and an old-fashioned wicker basket in the other.

When you walk along the spectacular seawall you will pass by one of the world’s biggest cruise ships under construction as well as the ancient ramps where housewives come to wash and dry their rag mats.

Basics Tap water is safe to drink in Helsinki but there are no similar guarantees to what is happening, so get hold of an updated guide before you start off. You will find free guides in English including Helsinki This Week and the Helsinki Clubland & Elokuvat with club, concert, DJ and movie listings if you are young. The one- two- or three-day Helsinki Card (left, www.helsinkicard.com) gives you discounts on otherwise quite expensive museum, gallery and transportation fees. If you have questions look for the brightly dressed Helsinki hosts or go to the Helsinki City Tourist Bureau (Pohjoisesplanadi 19, phone 9-169-3757) down at the Esplanade. You can rent bikes from City-bike racks for a 2-euro coin that you get back at whatever rack you return it at. And tax and tip is always included in your bill.Helsinki tourists at the Engel-designed Senate Square on their free Citybike cycles

1 Guide
In Helsinki 88% of the population is Finnish-speaking and 6% is Swedish-speaking. You get around fine in English but as only ten years ago there were only about 33 000 foreigners in this country of 5.2 million, information in English has been rudimentary. Today there is a bigger influx of foreigners, an estimated 100 000 of them living mostly in Helsinki and there is generally better information. One of the best guidebooks is Katja Pantzar’s really useful The Hip Guide to Helsinki that is the first English-language insider’s guide, and essential if you are spending a longer time in the Finnish capital. Katja Pantzar, who has lived in Vancouver, Toronto and London has written a fun, fact-filled document, full of juicy anecdotes and illustrated with great black and white photographs by award-winning Katja Turunen.

2 Markets
If you love people and food a lot of your time will evolve around the Market Square on the harbour front as well as the large indoor Saluhallen food market. The outdoor Kauppatori market is a people magnet everyday during the summer with its wonderful herring, lihapiirakka - meat pasties, munk-kipossu - donut pigs and ice cream as well as touristy knick-knacks and fresh fish, fruit and vegetables. This is also where the now 200-year old Baltic Herring Market takes place come October. When it gets chilly during the winter months or if you want a sitdown snack you move inside at the nearby market pavilion where you can have a glass of wine with your lunch. The place is full of tempting delicacies and on the walls you see historic photos of the indoor market going hundred years back. Across the road from the Market Square lies the Presidential Palace that is the official residence of President Tarja Halonen. Next to it lies the Esplanaden Park where the really prestigious stores and cafes are located, not to forget the sculptures of Havis Amanda (that is to Helsinki what the Little Mermaid is to Copenhagen), the Swedish Finnish author Johan Ludwig Runeberg, who wrote the Finnish national anthem and a sculpture of a mermaid by Moomin Dad, a k a Tove Jansson’s sculptor father. Market Square is also where you catch the ferry to Suomenlinna, the Korkeasaari Zoo and the idyllic town of Porvoo. You can also get on the sightseeing tram restaurant and have a meal and a beer while you enjoy the city sites.

3 Churches
If you cross the bridge east of Market Square you come to the imposing Russian Orthodox Uspensky Cathedral with its 13 golden onion domes. Rest awhile inside and study the icons and breath in the incense-heavy air of Helsinki’s eastern influence (with about 1 percent of the population belonging to the Orthodox church). Outside the red-brick Byzantine building, that is the largest Russian Orthodox church in western Europe, you have a great view of the city and you see the cupola of the Lutheran Cathedral (88 percent of Finns are Lutherans). You walk towards the Tuomiokirkko at the Senate Square through the oldest parts of Helsinki. It was here the architect Carl Ludwig Engel created a mini St. Petersburg in the early 1800s with lovely yellow and white neo-classical buildings. This part of Helsinki doubled as a Russian backdrop in many Cold War spy films like Gorky Park. Climb the majestic 48 stairs from Senate Square up to the Lutheran Cathedral (that you see on the cover). You will be struck by the very stark and almost empty interior in such striking contrast to the Uspensky Cathedral. You have a ways to go to the modern Temppeliaukio Church (Lutherinkatu 3) but you will be sorry if you miss it. The round church with an immense “floating” copper roof is built in the bedrock under the ground. Daylight filters in and creates a powerful contemplative mood.

4 White Buildings
Helsinki has some of the world’s most beautiful Jugend or Art Nouveau buildings in the most astounding colours. Therefore it is interesting that Finland’s great architect, Alvar Aalto so loved the white of the Mediterranean. He has clad his masterpiece Finlandia Hall (Mannerheimintie phone 9-040241) in white marble on both the inside and outside. With the Töölönlahti inlet of the Baltic on one side and the Mannerheim “parade street” on the other, Finlandia-Talo that houses concerts and congresses, has a magnificent setting and is the trademark of modern Finland. The equally white newly built Opera House, a jogging distance away, has almost the identical situation and many Finns do not like the fact that it almost dwarfs Finlandia Hall. Right now you can see Eino Juhani Rantavaara’s new opera Grigori Rasputin that is drawing an audience from all over the world.

At one end of Mannerheimintie stands the white Olympic Stadium with its 72 meter high tower that you can climb up for a panoramic view. The stadium was built for the 1952 Olympics at which the local sprinter Paavo Nurmi made the nation proud. You can see his statue outside the Stadium that has been the concert venue for everybody from Michael Jackson to the Rolling Stones. At the opposite downtown end of the Mannerheim Boulevard lies the brand new KIASMA museum of modern art where the glass and white facade is illuminated at night. The location of KIASMA, across from the imposing House of Parliament, and the choice of US architect Steven Holl rather than a Finn to design it, caused a great deal of controversy but now the museum has become a popular addition to the capital. With its curved walkways and walls and avant garde exhibits on everything from scent to the museum’s specialty, sound and film installations, it has come to symbolize Finland’s assent to high-techsupremacy. Sort of what Ghery’s Guggenheim Museum did for Bilbao.

5 Paintings
One of the most fascinating paintings at the downtown Ateneum Museum of Finnish Art (Central Station Square, open Tuesday-Sunday) is Damaged Angel by Hugo Simberg. People always stop and wonder about the vision the mystic conjured up in 1903. Simberg was a student of Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931) who became Finland’s national painter with his Aino triptyk and other motives from the Kalevala national epos. Next go to one of the expressive self- portraits of Helene “no-one knows how I really am” Schjerfbeck (1862-1946) who may be the best female painter the Nordic countries has produced. Then rest your eyes on one of Birger Carlstedt’s (1907-1975) abstract paintings and also take advantage of Ateneum’s great foreign art like Vincent van Gogh’s Street in Anvers-sur-Oise (1890) which was one of the last paintings the artist did.

6 Islands
If you catch one of the ferries or boats from the Market Square it will take you out to the six islands of Suomenlinna in about 15 minutes. The construction of the two hundred buildings and the five kilometer long fortification wall on these islands began in 1748 when Finland was still part of Sweden. This was the biggest Swedish construction project ever undertaken and it was overseen by the multi-talented Augustin Ehrensvärd whose unusual grave you can visit in the central courtyard. After the Swedish-Russian war 1808-9 Helsinki became the capital of the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland and the islands became a Russian garrison. Today what was once Sveaborg provides a breath of fresh air if you want to get out of the city. Bring a picnic and go for a swim and then wander through the fascinating historic forts and buildings of the UNESCO World Heritage Site that now houses seven museums, art galleries, stores, a recording studio and various cafes, restaurants and a brewery.

Snacking
No people in the world drink as much coffee as do the Finns so you are never far from a caffein kick. All cafés from “the Scandinavian Starbucks” Wayne’s Coffee in various locations to the tony Café Strindberg (Pohjoisesplanadi 33) at the Esplanade Park maintain a high standard. At Strindberg you can can sink down in the leather armchairs in the second floor library and enjoy the magazines. The next-door Café Aalto is actually situated on the second floor of Finland’s largest (3 000 different newspapers and magazines and a million book titles) Academic Bookstore that was designed in marble by Alvar Aalto. Nicest of all is the ancient Cafe Ekberg (Boulevardi 9) in the Swedish quarters with star cookies (above) and plenty of pastries and old-world charm.

Shopping
Finland has recently been re-visiting its design history from the 60s and everything from Tapio Wirkkala and Kaj Frank to Fiskars and Marimekko has been all the rage. What was popular and inexpensive then has now become Design with a capital D but the quality is still worth the higher prices. Check out the Design Forum Shop behind KIASMA. On the Esplanade you find the Marimekko (Pohjoisesplanadi 31) flagship store with the trademark multi-coloured prints that everybody from Jackie Kennedy to Geena Davis so loved. Next door you find the designer labels Vuokko, Rils and Anikki Karvinen and the Designor store with the Iittala glass, Hackman stainless steel and Arabia and Rörstrand china. Very special are also the Aarikka household items and jewelry pieces, the Kalevala koru (Unioninkatu 30) jewelry and the Artek (Eteläesplanadi 18) store with household goods and Alvar Aalto furniture. You will find many of these items also at the Stockman (Aleksanterinkatu 52) department store where you can do all your shopping in one place. Around town there are also great antiquarian bookshops, antique stores and quality vintage stores and you can also make rock-bottom price finds at for instance the summer Hietaniemi Square flea market.

Eating
Most tourists want to try out reindeer meat at the Sami Lappi restaurant (Annankatu 22, phone 9-645-550) or bear at a Russian restaurant, like Alexander Nevski (Pohjoisesplanadi 17, phone 9-686-9560). Helsinki has the best Russian restaurants in the Nordic region but you get cuisines from all over the world and for all budgets in the Finnish capital. The Kosmos (Kalevankatu 3, phone 9-647-255) is a Helsinki institution, specializing in Fin-nish cuisine and with a dining room designed by Alvar Aalto when he was an architectural student. His chef d’oevre is otherwise the Savoy Restaurant (Eteläesplanadi 15, phone 9-684-4020) that has his furniture and the classic “Savoy Vase” (that has become a must souvenir for most tourists), as well as a great view. The best restaurant in town is Chez Dominique (Ludvijinkatu 3-5, phone +9-612-7393) that you can read more about on page 34.

Partying
With the price of alcohol being so high, Finns are not statistically among the world’s top drinkers but this is not very apparent on a round of Helsinki’s watering holes. For amusing bar interiors you should check out Zetor (Kaivopiha) dedicated to a Russian tractor brand by designer and Leningrad Cowboy Sakke Järvenpää. There is also Russian nostalgia at film-making brothers Aki and Mika Kaurismäki’s Mockba (Eerikinkatu 11) while their next door Corona with pool tables has more of a Mexican feel. At Saunabar (Eerikinkatu 27) you can also take a sauna before heading to Tiiikeri (Yrjönkatu 36) for the young and beautiful.