The entrance to the Christmas market
One of the rooms in the presidential palace
The ceiling of one of the rooms
Close up of the detail around the upper walkway
Saturday we went to the Presidential Palace as it was the first time ever that it was open for tours. We were able to walk around the palace for free and take as many pictures as we wanted to. They had certain rooms open for people to walk through and some just open for viewing. Two of the rooms had the doors open but they were roped off. The president came out twice during our tour and we had the opportunity to shake her hand! There was a large turnout for the open palace and we had to wait in line for over two hours! The line was 5 blocks long when we joined 30 minutes after the doors opened! As you can see from the pictures the palace is very extravagantly decorated. There is a lot of attention to detail in all of the rooms. It was a nice experience to tour the palace and meet the president.
Before touring the presidential palace we went to the Helsinki Christmas market. There were over 120 vendors selling anything from hand made dolls to silver jewelry. There were several booths selling hand made scarves, hats and gloves, homemade jams and baked goods, wooden knives and a few selling sausages. We did not buy anything but we did look around at all of the booths.
