Breakfast this morning was (slightly stale) baguette left over from last night before going up the road to get the tram to the station where I had to find the 16 bus out to Korkeasaari, which is the island with a zoo on it. First Helsinki bus, discovery that my cardboard five-day ticket has some secret electronics inside it as it makes the ticket reader ping when I hold it against it, and twenty minutes through some very cobbled streets and some open roads only to discover, as I crossed the bridge to Korkeasaari, that the cathedrals are just a couple of hundred metres away. There’s a new bridge being built and I later found a sign explaining all the works: in 2027, they’re planning to open a new light railway which will run along the bottom of this island, connecting it directly to the city centre. I’m not entirely certain why this light railway means Korkeasaari is getting its own tram stop but whatever, it’s going to get easier to get there.

I was expecting something more like an Alpine wildpark, a semi-open place where mostly native animals roamed and the shores of the island were always visible. And there were bits of shore, mostly roped off because of nesting barnacle geese, but it felt a lot like a normal zoo. There was a tiger and three camels and some wallabies (these come under the title kengurut in Finnish) and monkeys and moose-like things and yak-like things and everything you’d expect in a zoo except elephants and giraffes. It’s a labyrinth and between the rocks, the enclosures and the trees, it’s mostly very easy to forget you’re on an island rather than just in a zoo on land as normal.

I didn’t take the bus all the way back to the city centre. I hopped off after about four stops and got the metro back instead. Not because there was any particular reason to, just because it was a method of transport I haven’t used yet. It turned out to be a good idea – I spied some empty seats from the platform and when I went to sit on them, I discovered that some of them were empty because there was an enormous black and tan dog asleep under them. He looked up when a small poodly thing boarded and had a good sniff but stayed down and stayed quiet and when it was out of sight and he’d sniffed enough, he went back to sleep.

Back at the station, I got in a bit of a tangle about finding a tram down to Senatintori, Senate Square. It would have been quicker and easier to walk. Trams leaving from the central station, I think, take a bend around the shopping centre to get to Aleksanterinkatu and so go in the opposite direction to the one I expect. I got there eventually. This is really Helsinki’s main square and it seems the done thing is to sit on the steps up to the cathedral. So I did. It was a warm day (I went out in shorts!) but it’s breezy and apparently the steps are immune to breeze. It’s the warmest place in Helsinki to sit and the stone is warm from the sun as well.

I wanted to go into the cathedrals. The white one is Helsinki’s main Protestant/Lutheran church. It’s a big white confection with corners and domes and gold and it is utterly underwhelming inside. Even St Paul’s isn’t as bare and boring. Oh yes, you can see the inside of the five domes but they’re all sponged in pale blue with no decoration at all. Uspenski Cathedrall, the big red Orthodox one, is closed on Mondays and still apparently the place to have your Helsinki photoshoot. As I walked around it in the hope of figuring out which door is in use, I spied the shop/pier on Korkeasaari through the buildings behind the cathedral. I compared the distance to the distance back to the main station. If you could walk on water, it’s not more than a mile away. Easily walking distance. But you have to go around the edge of the bay and you have to walk through a giant construction site and so taking a bus right out of the city is still the best way to get there.

What else was on my to-do list? The big wheel. That’s just down by the sea. I’d go and see if I could get on. No reason why not – it was going round and with no one on board. Surely SkyWheel couldn’t say “too busy, come back in 45 minutes”? They didn’t. They gave me a ticket – an actual ticket, not a receipt! – and sent me round to the queue, which was the two groups who’d been in front of me at the ticket office. We had our photos taken and I must remember to download my photos, and then I boarded from gate 4.

I had no idea how many times we were going to go round. It seemed to go pretty quickly and I was glad, and not surprised when we went a second time. Not surprised at the third. I was surprised when we went round a fourth time, though. Obviously I had a cabin to myself so I could hop from side to side depending on what I wanted to see. Views over the bay and out to Suomenlinna. Eye-level views of Uspenski. Birds-eye view of Allas Sea Pool. I saw the hot tub down below and finally found the sauna cabin four or five in front of me. I think I’ve had enough sauna but if I was here with a few more people and it was worth the money, I’d definitely go for the sauna/hot tub/SkyWheel package.

By now I was hungry and tired. I wanted some food and I wanted to swap my shorts for trousers so I could go over to Suomenlinna for the evening again. I took the tram up to Stockmann and did a little shopping – ok, I did a little wandering around feeing that this place is too big and too expensive and is full of things I don’t particularly want to buy anyway, but eventually I found the big gourmet supermarket hiding on the minus second floor and stocked up on bread, drink and korvapuustia and came home.

I knew what would happen. I ate my bread, I charged my phone, I changed into my trousers and then I lay down on the bed to wait for the bread to settle down and here I still am. I am never getting up at 2am for a flight again. It just isn’t worth it.

What are tomorrow’s plans? Well, I still have plenty on my to-do list. Uspenski and the Church in the Rock are the main things to cross off. I might go over to Seurasaari but I’ve been there before and with limited time left, I might find another island, or go to that beach, or find another sauna. Can I be bothered with another sauna? Carrying wet swimming things around just to sit in a small room that’s too hot? I know and appreciate that it’s a Finnish tradition but I really prefer the Icelandic tradition of sitting in warm water. That’s virtually unknown here. I wish the nice pool up the road was open because that would be the perfect last-evening thing to do. Maybe I’ll go back to Suomenlinna tomorrow night.