A real Hel praiser

Finn fan Sarah Marshall finds Helsinki one exciting city break

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alk about blast from one past.

Here I was at a heaving festival in Helsinki, listening to trumpet player Jukka Eskola, who was transporting me back 20 years.

Back then, his band, The Five Corners Quintet, had brought 60s-inspired jazz to a tiny new festival called Flow. Held in the industrial outskirts of Finland's capital, it attracted a niche crowd of music fans ~and I was one of them.

Flow has now grown to be one of the biggest events in Finland's summer calendar, held over three days in August in the grounds of the defunct Suvilahti power plant, attracting more than 90,000 people. This year's headliners included Charli XCX and Kneecap - but it was the Five Comers Quintet reunion gig that excited me, and did not let me down.

I've visited Helsinki countless times, developing a fondness for its food, culture, nature and design and T've watched it grow into one of Europes most exciting capitals.

And it has aged well. Bars have sprung up in abandoned buildings, exciting new restaurants like The Room By Kozeen Shiwan have earned Michelin stars, and a deeply embedded sauna culture has sparked a global wellbeing craze.

This is still a city where anarchists defy police by building free-to-enter bathhouses out of disused building materials and businesses prefer to please everyday people rather than shareholders. A changing climate is also having an impact.