Snowing in Helsinki, Finland

Helsinki Cathedral with Christmas tree.

After a weekend in Luxembourg, I've completely changed climates to the quick path to winter. The first snow fell on Helsinki the day of our arrival. The taxi driver said it wasn't yet "real" snow because it was a bit wet. We are here to film an opera star, Renee Fleming, who we met yesterday for an interview (Programme Musica on Euronews the first of December). The concert is this evening and we filmed the city most of the day today. But there is very little daytime now and the sun only makes sporadic apparitions. In the architecture, you can see both scandinavian and slavic influence. At times, I feel like I'm in St. Petersburg and others firmly planted in Scandinavia. I guess it's this mix that makes Finland.

On our first day here, we had reindeer soup and swordfish, both of which were delicious and kept us warm for filming. I wanted to get a shot of the sea as water is a big part of Finland. The country is really a bit of land around thousands of lakes. This bird was resting, huddled against the wind at the port of Helsinki where the big tourist cruise ships dock.