To St. Petersburg round the Baltic Cruise - Helsinki & Sibelius

I went for breakfast at 0730, as I was supposed to be on the dock at 9 but the ship was running late yet again. Jacquie offered Avis a tour place, so she came with me on the "Sibelius Experience" tour. The native guide Lisa was very good & got big applause at the end. She took us out to Ainola first, which we had a good look round.

The house guide put the best gloss possible on Sibelius' nature & told some fibs. I had a Sibelius fanatic on the bus, who had strongly disapproved of my talk. Then, we went to the Aino Hall for a brief concert of Sibelius played by violin & piano, the latter playing an arrangement of Finlandia which did not really work. On the way back, we went through the sights of Helsinki but there is nowhere to park at the Sibelius Monument, so we just slowly drove by. We were only back to the ship at 1440 for a late lunch, rather hurried.