• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Umami Girl logo

  • About
  • Recipes
  • Topics
    • Family
    • Food
    • Home
    • Adventure
  • Shop
  • Nav Social Menu

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
menu icon
go to homepage
subscribe
search icon
Homepage link
  • Recipes
  • Lifestyle
  • About
  • Shop
  • Favorite Things
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
  • ×

    Lifestyle » Adventure » Travel » Europe » A Musical Visit to Tallinn, Estonia and Helsinki, Finland

    A Musical Visit to Tallinn, Estonia and Helsinki, Finland

    March 26, 2015 / Updated Jun 05, 2020 / by Carolyn Gratzer Cope / 4 Comments

    Umami Girl is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn a commission. Learn more here.

    Tips, tricks, photos, and ideas from our family's visit to Helsinki, Finland and Tallinn, Estonia, visiting friends and touring with the wonderful London Oriana Choir. Here's what we learned about traveling to Helsinki and Tallinn with kids.

    Old Town Tallinn Estonia | Umami Girl 780

    Here’s something I don’t talk about much: I sing. Kind of a lot.

    Not just in the car (though, come on, definitely in the car), and usually not just that awkward kind of sidewalk singing where you’re wearing your noise-canceling Beats by Dre headphones and assume you sound awesome. (It’s not your fault — you paid enough to sound awesome.)

    Nope, a different kind of awkward singing.

    Choral singing.

    Choral singing love

    It’s highly contagious. Our daughters do it too. And now that the elder one is about the age I was when I started, I guess I could say I’ve been singing in choirs for a whole generation. But I would never say something like that, because it’s suddenly become obvious to me that it’s a terrifying thing to say. I did take a long break during young adulthood, when work and life in NYC were all-consuming. For a hot minute I think I was also trying to gauge whether it was this hobby holding me back from A-list It Girl status. Turns out, no. Had the cause and effect reversed on that one. Lesson learned, geekiness embraced, 20s outgrown.

    These days the reason I don’t often talk about singing has nothing to do with social climbing and everything to do with the fear of ruining something perfect by acknowledging it. Or by doing an inadequate job of expressing love for it. How do you talk about a hobby that bends time and unites heartbeats? That edges you close to transendence when you do it and grief when you don’t? It’s a little much. Sometimes it’s best to keep it to yourself.

    So.

    That’s my back there in the front row, black sleeveless shirt, hair looking different than I always think it does. And my back is in Estonia. You can’t say that every day.

    London Oriana Choir Sings in Tallinn Estonia | Umami Girl 780

    London Oriana Choir

    Actually, half of the people in the photo can say that every day. They’re members of the awesomely named Mixed Choir of the European Capital of Culture. That’s the Estonian choir we worked with in Tallinn. The rest are London Oriana Choir (directed by the incomparable Dominic Peckham), with whom I had the great privilege to sing while we lived in England. Now that I’m retired and no longer at risk of self-aggrandizement, I’m free to say that this group is full of just berserkly talented people. England’s choral tradition teaches interested kids to sing well, read music and be familiar with a wide array of choral works earlier and more rigorously than most American schools, and you can really tell when singing with adults raised in that culture. Many of them have the kind of musical fluency that suggests they were raised bilingual from an early age. Our experience with British schools bore out that suggestion, and it’s one of the things I miss. 

    Though my tenure with the group wasn’t long, I did get to celebrate their 40th anniversary season. I made a cake! Here’s a clip from the gala concert we performed at the stunning St. Paul’s Covent Garden last year, in case you want to geek out with me for a sec. In that concert we premiered a piece by acclaimed composer Toby Young. In addition to being Oriana’s composer in residence and a highly in-demand writer, I learned that Toby is also a longtime fan of Umami Girl. How ridiculously fun is that? I mean…no big deal.

    Visiting Helsinki and Tallinn

    It’s thanks to Oriana’s touring schedule that our family visited Estonia and Finland last spring, and also Northern Ireland in the fall. Though I don’t like to admit it, we probably wouldn’t have made it to any of those places otherwise. We also discovered the pleasure of traveling to collaborate with musicians from other cultures. (It’s like business travel but so, so much better.) The chance to see both Belfast and Tallinn through that lens was a gift. In Belfast especially, because it retains palpable evidence of its difficult political history, being welcomed into a warm and vibrant group of singers really transformed the way we experienced the city.

    Old Town Tallinn Estonia | Umami Girl 780-2

    The old town of Tallinn

    These pictures offer a taste of the beautiful Old Town of Tallinn, a UNESCO World Heritage site whose long and fascinating history I will not butcher here. (Instead, maybe read this summary by people who know what they’re talking about.) One fact I will pass along is that two years ago tomorrow (March 27, 2013), Estonians celebrated the beginning of their longest period of freedom in history — only 7,891 days, or a little more than 21 years, after having been ruled successively by various other countries since the 13th century. It’s astounding how much ancient architecture remains given how often Estonia has been fought over.

    Architecture Old Town Tallinn Estonia | Umami Girl 780
    Painter Old Town Tallinn Estonia | Umami Girl 780
    Alexander Nevsky Cathedral Tallinn Estonia | Umami Girl 780

    Tallinn today

    Tallinn today is cosmopolitan and comfortable. You could be forgiven for finding it almost familiar — until you come across something like Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, above, a hulking relic of Russian Imperial rule. You’ll find tourists from all over the world, restaurants offering everything from traditional Estonian fare to raw vegan food,  and — something I wouldn’t have expected — lots of hen and stag parties from England. The alcohol is cheap enough that people take the ferry over from Helsinki on the weekends to do a big buy, and Tallinn has become a big party town for that reason. Not to mention, it’s much quicker and less expensive to fly from London to Tallinn than from New York to Vegas. Europeans will always have the upper hand in geographic awesomeness.

    Hydrofoil Helsinki Finland to Tallinn Estonia | Umami Girl 780
    Waterfront Helsinki Finland | Umami Girl 780

    How to get between Tallinn and Helsinki

    Speaking of the ferry, I share a name with the one we took, pictured here docking in Helsinki after an inexpensive hour and 40 minute ride on the Linda Line. To get to Tallinn, we flew in and out of Helsinki because the flights were substantially less expensive for the four of us. Plus, we got to go to Helsinki! Win-win.

    I got kind of giddy about being in Finland (perhaps somehow related to my Swedish fetish?) and took some screenshots of maps and our attempts to find salads without meat in them. It was harder than you might think — kinkku lurked in the darnedest places. It took me two or three days to get over the We’re In Finland! factor. Which is exactly how long we were in Finland, so.

    Ham Salad in Helsinki Finland | Umami Girl 780

    Where to stay in Helsinki with kids

    In Helsinki we stayed in our very first airbnb, an adorable studio that is basically a page from the IKEA catalog. It’s hard to believe, less than a year later, that this was our first use of airbnb. We hardly remember what hotels are anymore.

    Helsinki Finland Airbnb Kitchen | Umami Girl 780

    What to do in Helsinki with kids

    Looking beyond my weird Scandinavian obsessions, we liked Helsinki a whole lot for actual, discernible reasons too. We felt like we understood right away why people are happy living there, though we may have been influenced by the warm sun and long days of late May, which I hear don’t stick around all year. Finland — even southernmost Helsinki — is not messing around where northernness is concerned.

    A little like Amsterdam, for lack of a better comparison, Helsinki really understands how to do quirkiness correctly. The city has a good vibe — comfortable and interesting at the same time — that indicates success without anyone having to say it. There’s a lot of beautiful architecture, from the striking Helsinki Cathedral, below, to the residential buildings in the city’s central neighborhoods. History layers nicely with modernity, with trams and cobblestones standing outside fun and funky shops.

    Helsinki Cathedral Finland | Umami Girl 780

    Where to eat in Helsinki with kids

    We were lucky enough to have friends welcome us for dinner one night, which is the absolute best kind of restaurant on both the cultural immersion and general wonderfulness fronts. Beyond that, we found a few casual culinary gems in our immediate neighborhood. One favorite is Qulma, Finnish for Corner, a lively lunch cafe with a daily soup and baked potato bar and plenty of charm. (Mariegatan 13, 00170 Helsingfors, Finland, +358 45 3215959) We also loved the gourmet shop Anton & Anton, not pictured because I was too hungry, where we shopped — not quickly enough — for ingredients to cook one night in our apartment. That’s where I got my favorite vegetable bullion. (Museigatan 19, 00100 Helsingfors, Finland, +358 40 1456808)

    Helsinki Finland Qulma Restaurant | Umami Girl 780
    Shop Helsinki Finland | Umami Girl 780
    Popup Cafe Helsinki Finland | Umami Girl 780

    TTYL

    Well, I enjoyed that little bit of time travel and hope you did, too. That’s a nice perk of having a long backlist of travel posts to work through. See you next week with an Easter recipe and exactly no talk of singing or Scandinavia, promise.

    Talk to you soon.

    Hungry for more?

    Subscribe to our email updates, and follow along on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube.

    « A Visit to Las Peñitas, Nicaragua
    August in Seville »
    • 12

    About Carolyn Gratzer Cope

    Welcome! I’m Carolyn Gratzer Cope, and Umami Girl is your guide to a life well-lived. UG is a lifestyle site for curious, thoughtful people who seek to make every day a little special and have a great time doing it. We're brimming with real talk about the things that matter most — family, food, home, and adventure — and I hope you'll love digging in. Read More…

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Carla says

      March 31, 2015 at 5:02 am

      We visited Helsinki in 2002 (back before we were vegan) and the vibe was exactly as you described it even back then! We backpacked for 4 months and Helsinki was always one of the top 3 when people asked about favorite cities and I explained almost the same as you. Glad you had a good time.

      Reply
    2. http://www.coffeekate.com says

      March 30, 2015 at 2:07 pm

      i've always wanted to tour over in europe and learn about singing. maybe one day i can get over there! 🙂

      Reply

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recipe Rating




    Primary Sidebar

    WELCOME TO UG

    Welcome! I’m Carolyn Gratzer Cope, and Umami Girl is your guide to a life well-lived. UG is a lifestyle site for curious, thoughtful people who seek to make every day a little special and have a great time doing it. Learn more

    THE FRIDAY NEWSLETTER

    Start every weekend off right with our Friday newsletter.

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter

    Most Popular

    Easy Vegetarian Ramen | Umami Girl

    Easy Vegetarian Ramen with Rich, Savory Broth

    sushi rice in a shallow white bowl over a napkin

    How to Make Sushi Rice (Instant Pot or Stovetop)

    Reverse Seared Pork Chops with Quick Shallot Herb Pan Sauce 780 | Umami Girl

    Reverse Sear Pork Chops with Quick Shallot Herb Pan Sauce

    The Best Sauteed Mushrooms Recipe 780 | Umami Girl

    Easy Side Dish: The Best Sautéed Mushrooms Recipe

    Spring Favorites

    napa cabbage stir fry with salt and pepper tofu, mushrooms, and red bell pepper in a bowl with chopsticks

    Napa Cabbage Stir Fry with Salt and Pepper Tofu

    blanco tequila cocktail in a single old fashioned glass garnished with star anise on a blue background

    The Dreamcatcher (A Blanco Tequila Cocktail)

    Blender Hollandaise Sauce 780 | Umami Girl

    Immersion Blender Hollandaise Sauce: A Fabulous Party Trick

    a pink raspberry meyer lemon greek yogurt smoothie in a jam jar glass with a blue and white paper straw

    Greek Yogurt Smoothie with Raspberry and Meyer Lemon

    Footer

    As seen on

    a few examples of where umami girl has been featured

    Make It Tonight

    refried bean and cheese enchiladas with red tex mex enchilada sauce

    Refried Bean and Cheese Enchiladas

    tex mex enchilada sauce in a jar with a spoon

    Tex Mex Enchilada Sauce

    chicken and black bean enchiladas with green enchilada sauce in a pan and on a plate with a fork

    Chicken and Black Bean Enchiladas

    green enchilada sauce in a jar with a spoon

    Green Enchilada Sauce Recipe

    4 ingredient guacamole recipe in a molcajete

    4 Ingredient Guacamole Recipe and Variations

    vegan black bean soup in a bowl with a spoon and napkin

    Vegan Black Bean Soup (Instant Pot or Stovetop)

    • About
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy

    © 2008-2022 UMAMI GIRL LLC