Helsinki
Helsinki is a sea-town par excellence and an exciting, dynamic place.
Helsinki is a sea-town par excellence and an exciting, dynamic place.
If you’re looking for quintessential summertime Finland, this is it.
The southern coast of Finland extends west and east from Helsinki in two roughly equal stretches: one ending in a finger of land jutting into the Baltic towards Sweden, the other coming up short at the Russian border.
Effectively Finland's second city, Tampere (Swedish: Tammerfors) is an exciting place combining Finnish sophistication with an industrious energy that is perhaps an inheritance from its days as 'the Manchester of Finland', as 19th-century cotton...
Little known beyond the Baltic, this sweeping archipelago is a curious geopolitical entity that belongs to Finland, speaks Swedish, but has its own parliament, flies its own flag proudly from every pole, and issues its own national stamps.
Extending hundreds of kilometres above the Arctic Circle, Lapland is Finland’s true wilderness.
This one-time capital of Finland has a very historic feel, being the country's oldest city.
Pretty Mariehamn will seem a bustling metropolis if you've arrived from some of the other entry points in Åland or have spent some time in the archipelago.
Prosperous Oulu (Swedish: Uleåborg) is one of Finland's most enjoyable cities to visit.
Rovaniemi is the capital of Lapland, and its major gateway and service centre.
The Republic of Karelia stretches from not far north of St Petersburg to the Arctic Circle - more than half of it is forest, and fully a quarter is water, including nearly all of Lake Onega and half of Lake Ladoga, the two largest lakes in Europe.
One of the most likeable towns in Finland, Kuopio is a very satisfying place that seems to combine several Suomi essentials - ski-jumps, forest, lakes, saunas, - in one neat package.
Set on the shore's of Finland's largest lake, Lappeenranta (Swedish: Villmanstrand), is the capital of South Karelia.
Hanko (Swedish: Hangö), on a long sandy peninsula, blossomed as a spa town in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when it was a glamorous retreat for Russian nobles, tsars and artists.
Located at the slender waist of the Gulf of Bothnia and a bare 45 nautical miles from Sweden, it's no surprise that a cultural duality exists in Vaasa (Swedish: Vasa).
An enduringly popular day or overnight trip from Helsinki, Porvoo (Swedish: Borgå), 50km east of Helsinki, is the second-oldest town in Finland after Turku.
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