Our Sunday started off in ideal holiday fashion – slow and easy. With no complicated tourist plans, we started off with breakfast, followed by a walk through the quiet and deserted downtown streets. It was tough trying to find places that were open as we wandered aimlessly from one area to the next until it was noontime when most stores started opening their doors. After contributing to the retail landscape, it dawned on us that it was already 2 o’clock and had yet to have lunch so it became rather urgent, from a tourist point of view, to find a place that was good, and more importantly close by. It looks like they take their Sundays here very seriously as none of the restaurants I looked at were open at all, so the hunt proved to be a bit more challenging than expected. After deciding on where to eat, we walked back in the direction of Esplanade Park to Boulevard Social but soon found out that their online listing was wrong as they were convincingly closed today. Luckily right next door was an attractive-looking trattoria that was open, empty, and able to take us in. We sat by a private, beautiful window-side banquet and started our culinary journey through Tuscany by way of Helsinki, courtesy of Toscanini.

It was already 3 o’clock by the time we started eating and I found it odd the place started to slowly fill up. Halfway through our meal, the place was nearly full, which I thought was sign of how Helsinki summers are, or who knows maybe it was just a Sunday thing – wait until you’re completely over a hangover before having lunch. After a hearty 3-courses, two wines, and other stuff in between, our carb-heavy, meat, and seafood lunch was prepared us well for a slightly drizzly, lazy Sunday afternoon.