“Aaaarr me hearties, what’s that I be seeing there? A real-life pirate ship!” Looking to take the kids on a pirate adventure? We know just the place.

While staying in Helsinki we discovered our very own ‘Treasure Island’ – Suomenlinna.

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While exploring the small island of Suomenlinna, we came across a real-life wooden pirate ship – fully equipped with crew dressed for the occasion!

We paid our 25Euro and climbed aboard…

Conditions at sea were perfect and the kids were immediately put to work hoisting the sails!

When the oars came out everyone took their turn. Each time our oar entered the water Ben, at just over 1metre tall, was swinging at the end of the oar – too little to weigh down the oar.

There were no ‘attacks’ on our ship that day, so there was no need to set off the canons but the crew recounted many tales of treacherous pirate adventures at sea.

The kids enjoyed having free roam of the pirate ship to explore and come up with their own pirate stories.

Suomenlinna sea fortress is one of Finland’s World Heritage Sites. In 1991, it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List as a unique monument of military architecture.