A seaside stroll in Helsinki

A seaside stroll in Helsinki is an easy half-day walk along Helsinki's west coast.

This stroll past some of Helsinki's sights is about 7 km from end to end and can be completed easily in a morning or afternoon. Aside from the Sibelius Monument and Seurasaari Open-Air Museum, there are few tourists about on most of the trail, and it offers a slice of Finnish nature and city life a very short hop away from the city. A sunny summer day is optimal, but a warm late spring or early autumn day has its attractions, and parts of it may even be accessible by ski in winter.

No preparation necessary, everything you'd need can be picked up from kiosks and cafes along the way. You don't really even need a map, as the trail follows the coast all the way.

Here are three points along the walk easily accessible by public transport.

For Ruoholahti, take the metro (or tram 8) to western terminus Ruoholahti metro station.

For Hietaniemi Beach, take bus 55A from Central Railway Station towards Hietaniemi, the final stop is right at the beach car park.

For Seurasaari, take bus 24 from Erottaja, at the intersection of Etelä-Esplanadi and Mannerheimintie. The bus terminates directly in front of Seurasaari Bridge.

The walk starts at 1 Ruoholahti metro station, smack dab in one of Helsinki's newer districts, full of modern apartments and anonymous office buildings. Unless you want to pack a picnic at the S-Market or have a fast-food lunch before setting off, there's no need to spend any time here — take the underpass under the highway and wind your way past the blue office buildings to the start of the footpath.

The large white buildings to your left, mostly hidden by the forest, make up 2 Lapinlahti Hospital, Finland's first mental hospital. Designed by Carl Ludvig Engel, the man behind most of classical Helsinki, it opened in 1841 and, in an age when "treatment" for mental patients often consisted of chaining them to their beds, was quite advanced for its time, with large gardens around it to calm and heal patients. The hospital ceased operations in 2008, but the place is commemorated in the name of the cult Finnish pop band Lapinlahden Linnut, or "Birds of Lapinlahti" -- shades of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Past the hospital you'll see the sweep of 3 Lapinlahti Bay to your left, the coast that we'll be following from now on. To your right is peaceful 4 Hietaniemi Cemetery (Hietaniemen hautausmaa), where the great, the good and the ancient of Finland are buried. Highlights for grave-spotters include the graves of marshal Mannerheim, architects Alvar Aalto and Engel, Moomin creator Tove Jansson, and the often ornate Orthodox crypts. Some gravestones date back several hundred years and have been eroded into illegibility. Cross the car park and continue straight to...

5 Hietaniemi Beach, or just Hietsu to the locals, is Helsinki's hottest beach, where the mercury climbs above 25 °C (77 °F) or so. There are toilets, changing rooms, cafes and other basic amenities. The water here never gets too warm (by non-Finnish standards, anyway), but after a few sunny days, the relatively shallow bay does make it a little more tolerable than the always frigid Baltic Sea.

Keep tracking the coastline past Hietsu. This end of the beach, which is occupied by unruly bushes and a minigolf course, is to be turned into a luxurious spa hotel, although the plan has run into local opposition and financial trouble, and is unlikely to go forward anytime soon.

After the minigolf course, you'll reach 6 Hesperia Park (Hesperianpuisto), which heads down to Mannerheimintie and the city center. That's not where we're going just yet, though, so just follow the coastside sidewalk for a few hundred meters past the yacht harbor.

Before our next stop, keep an eye out for a Finnish summertime institution, namely a seaside 7 carpet pier (mattolaituri). This is where the good folk of Helsinki come to wash their carpets: running water and drying racks are provided, but you need to bring your own soap, and on a warm summer day the pier will be packed with housewives (and husbands) giving their ryijy rag carpets a good scrubbing.

The main danger is mercenary squirrels in Seurasaari. Don't carry open containers of food, even in your backpack, since these little thieves won't hesitate to jump in to get to it!

During the summer months, you can spot quite a few berries along the path, such as raspberries and red currants. These are easy to recognize and generally safe to eat. However, locals usually avoid berries growing right beside the path, as they may have been marked by passing dogs. When foraging, be cautious and only pick berries you can confidently identify.