There’s not a peeping Tom in me but there’s one hidden place where I have yearned to get a quick look for years.
Best view in Helsinki, Finland’s capital, is from a place where no man can get. Sorry, guys.
It´s from a women’s toilet.
In the middle of Helsinki, on the hill, is situated Hotel Torni (Tower), art deco building which has most colourful history with all kind of artists, gangsters and agents mixing together. During Cold War decades there were more foreign secret agents working in Helsinki than any other city in Europe. Berlin, divided by the Wall, was left far behind in agent count.
The hot spot of Hotel Torni was and is its Atelier Bar on the top floor. You have to climb last floor by very narrow, challenging spiral stairs. From the bar you can see over the sea to Estonia in good weather. About eighty kilometers.
In June darkness of night never comes, there’s always light in horizon. It's time of nightless night. In Lapland sun doesn't go down at all during forty days. Forty days and nights of pure shining.
The hidden pearl of Helsinki sightseeing is the women’s toilet of Atelier Bar. Best view ever, says every woman who visits there. When you sit down on toilet seat you have three large windows around you and you can watch the panorama of forests, sea, lakes and roofs around you going on endlessly and endlessly. You can see everything and everybody but nobody can see you.
In men’s toilet there is only one narrow lousy window like in prison cell. Nobody stays there long. In women's toilet even shortest visit lasts ten times longer.
This picture was taken by Kirsi, my wife, last night around eleven. It gives only a hunch of superb feeling and panorama, so she said to me. The sky was cloudy but full of light, like in daytime. Landscape glimmered like leaf gold. In small Atelier Bar there were standing and chattering people from Spain, Japan, Italy, England, Sweden, Russia, Germany and United States, at least. Like in those Cold War days of agents. Tender was the summer night.
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