Sights in South Coast
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Turun Taidemuseo
The excellent Turku Art Museum is a striking granite building with elaborately carved pilasters and conical turrets. Much of the art is modern, though the Victor Westerholm offers Finnish landscapes and Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s depictions of the Kalevala are always jaw-dropping. Gunnar Berndtson’s Kesä (Summer) is an idyllic depiction of sunny Suomi while RW Ekman’s The Muses is transcendent Romantic.
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Luostarinmäki Handicrafts Museum
The name 'handicrafts museum' gives little indication of how fascinating this open-air museum really is. It is made up of the only surviving 18th-century area of this medieval town - Turku has been razed by fire 30 times - and all the buildings are still in their original locations, unlike most Finnish open-air museums where the buildings are moved from elsewhere, or re-created.
Carpenters, stonemasons, jewellers and other workers built homes and shops in the area, beginning in 1779. When the great fire of 1827 destroyed most of Turku, Luostarinmäki neighbourhood was one of the few that survived.
Since 1940 it has served as a museum, but doesn't feel like one: it's more l…
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Neljän Tuulen Tupa
On Little Pine Island, 1.5km east of the town centre, is Neljän Tuulen Tupa, where locals snuck swigs of ‘hard tea’ (alcohol) during the Finnish prohibition (1919–32). Field Marshal CGE Mannerheim, who had his summer cottage on the neighbouring island, wouldn’t stand for it. Disturbed by the merry-making, he bought the whole joint in 1926, fired the chef, imported tea sets from France and personally ran the place until 1931. Little Pine Island is now connected to the mainland by a bridge and has a beautiful cafe and summer terrace perched over the water. Today the tea room itself is modest, but the view is free with granite tables carved from the surrounding rocks.…
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Convent Church
The only building remaining from the Convent of the Order of Saint Birgitta is the massive Convent Church, which towers above the harbour. The church was completed in 1462 though its baroque stone tower dates from 1797. The interior is surprisingly wide, with elegant vaulting and a very handsome 17th-century pulpit depicting the apostles and evangelists in a blaze of colour. Also noteworthy is the carved 15th-century polychrome wood triptych behind the altar and an evocative wooden head of Christ below it. Recent archaeological digs around the church revealed more than 2000 pieces of jewellery, coins and other relics that appear in the museum.
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Lighthouse
Bengtskär is the southernmost inhabited island of Finland, which is 25km from Hanko and famous for its lighthouse. It was built in 1906 to protect ships from the dangerous waters of the archipelago and given the perilous nature of the waters it had to be 52m high, making it Scandinavia’s tallest lighthouse. Damaged extensively during the Continuation War by the departing Red Army in 1941, it remains a stunning spectacle thanks to substantial refurbishment. Today it also takes guests in simple rooms that have quite a view. There are a few exhibits explaining the historical significance of the island, and a shop.
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Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova
This pair of museums under one roof unites art and archaeology. Digging continues in the museum and along the Aurajoki, and excavations of the Convent Quarter have created an engaging display of 15th-century artefacts in the Aboa Vetus. Back in the present, Ars Nova showcases the best of contemporary art with temporary exhibitions, which peak around the Turku Biennaali, a themed show in summer in odd years. The new Oma Tila (Our Own S) is accumulating work from local artists and craftspeople, especially work produced as part of their own projects. Free guided tours offer insights into both museums.
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Tytyri Mine Museum
The Tytyri Mine Museum is an authentic limestone mine well worth visiting. An excellent descent into the bowels of the earth in a funicular takes you to the wide spaces below, where there are good information panels in English. Here, as elsewhere in Finland, new mine shafts were painted with tar to keep out devils. The deepest shaft measures 384m and is used to test elevators. The highlight of the visit is a short sound-and-light presentation looking into an awesomely large quarried cavern.
It's cold in the mine, so take a jacket. The museum is 500m north of the town centre, past the tourist office.
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Museum Ships
Outside the Forum Marinum, anchored in the river, are four museum ships which you can climb aboard and poke around in, above and below deck.
The WWII mine layer Keihässalmi and the corvette Karjala give an insight into wartime conditions at sea; the beautiful three-masted barque Sigyn, originally launched from Göteborg in 1887, has well preserved cabins; and the impressive 1902 sailing ship Suomen Joutsen (Swan of Finland), which was built in France, was used by the Finnish Navy during WWII as a mother ship for submarines and as a hospital.
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Castle
The castle is 14km east of Ekenäs, and about 2km west of the wonderfully named village of Snappertuna. It’s signposted Slottsruiner/Linnanrauniot off the main road; buy your tickets at the cafe. There’s not a lot of explanatory material in English, but it’s great to climb up and down the levels and patrol the ramparts. There are free tours from mid-May to August weekends at 3pm. During July there are evening concerts at Raseborg; contact the Ekenäs tourist office for details. There are occasional buses to Snappertuna from Ekenäs or Karis.
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Turku Castle & Historical Museum
Mammoth Turku Castle & Historical Museum, near the ferry terminals, is easily Finland’s largest and possibly one of the biggest in Scandinavia. Founded in 1280 at the mouth of the Aurajoki, the castle has been growing ever since. Swedish Count Per Brahe ruled Finland from here in the 17th century, while Sweden’s deposed King Eric XIV was imprisoned in the castle’s Round Tower in the late 16th century. He was moved to several prisons including Åland’s Kastelholms Slott to prevent his discovery by rebels.
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Maritime Centre Vellamo
Relocated here from Hylkysaari off Helsinki, this maritime museum is a spectacular new museum that fittingly recounts the maritime life of Finland. The tanker-sized building has a wavelike design with a mosaic facade of photographs that’s coolly attractive. The star exhibit is the Tarmo, the world’s oldest ice-breaker (1908) that determinedly ploughed Finnish waters until it was retired in 1970. There’s a roster of changing exhibitions that showcase other sea-based memorabilia.
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Luostarinmäki Handicrafts Museum
If you only see one museum in Finland, make it this handicrafts museum. Forget the stuffy exhibits, this is a genuinely historic portion of town that has survived the near-destruction of Turku including the savage Great Fire of 1827. All of the buildings are in their original locations, unlike other open-air museums where the buildings are relocated or recreated. The area consists of artisans’ and workers’ homes with a very real sense of their lives, thanks to in-period staff.
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Kultaranta Grounds
The summer residence of the president of Finland is a fanciful stone castle on Luonnonmaa island; the tower is visible from Naantali harbour across the bay. The castle, designed by Lars Sonck, was built in 1916 and is surrounded by a 56-hectare estate with beautiful, extensive rose gardens.
The Kultaranta Grounds are visited by guided tour only. The hour-long tour starts from Kulturanta gate, or the bus tour begins at Naantali. Book through the tourist office.
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Forum Marinum
Set back from the river, this excellent maritime museum has a permanent exhibition in an old granary. It’s a comprehensive look at different aspects of ships and shipping, from scale models to full-size vessels. Kid-friendly highlights include the hydrocopter, WWII torpedoes and multimedia displays. The newer building opposite has regular exhibitions, as well as several vessels and a cabin from a luxury cruise-liner, as many were built in Turku.
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Sibelius Museum
Near the cathedral, Sibelius Museum displays some 350 musical instruments from across Finland and memorabilia of the famous Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. It is the most extensive musical museum in Finland. You can listen to Sibelius’ music on scratchy record or, better still, attend a Wednesday evening concert (from September to May, less often in summer) which showcases jazz, folk, rock and classical performers from around the country.
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Maretarium
More than an aquarium, the impressive Maretarium has over 20 giant fish tanks representing various bodies of water. The Baltic tank, for example, is the largest, with local sea life fed regularly by a diver. The water is piped in from the sea to keep the natural life cycle of fish going, so salmon spawn in autumn and in winter the freakish eelpout give birth. It’s an absorbing insight with English signage, guided tours and a theaterette.
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Paikkari Cottage
Twenty-three kilometres west of Lohja, and 5km north of the village of Sammatti, just off Rd 104, is Paikkari Cottage, the birthplace of Elias Lönnrot, compiler of the Kalevala. It’s an endearing cottage set amid summer-flowering meadows that would have motivated Lönnrot’s Arcadian vision but today inspire picnics. Inside there’s a small museum to the man that includes his kantele (Karelian stringed instrument).
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Front Museum
Nineteen kilometres northeast of Hanko, and just off the Ekenäs highway (Rd 25), the Front Museum remembers Finland’s WWII involvement at the site of some of the worst fighting. There are original trenches, bunkers, artillery guns and an extensive tent exhibition. This area was occupied by Russia during the war and the people of Hanko were evacuated for a year.
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Museum-Ship Tarmo
The world's oldest icebreaker, the Museum-Ship Tarmo is moored at Central Harbour. Built at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1907, it once kept Finnish shipping lanes open, and you can now go aboard and explore the cabins, bridge and engine room. In a hall nearby are another pair of vessels; a coastal patrol-boat and a lifeboat.
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Pharmacy Museum
On the riverfront, Qwensel House is Turku’s oldest, built around 1700. It houses the small Pharmacy Museum with an old laboratorium featuring medicinal herbs, 18th-century ‘Gustavian’ (Swedish) furnishings and an exhibition of bottles and other pharmacy supplies.
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St Nicholas Church
St Nicholas Church was founded in the 13th century. There are beautiful frescoes over the altar, but most striking is the Dance of Death frieze opposite the entrance door. In this frieze, grinning Reapers escort various members of society to the afterlife; all are equal in death.
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Fagervik Ironworks
About 8km west of Ingå, Fagervik Ironworks was established in 1646 as a bruk (ironworks precinct). The Russian army razed the area during the Great Northern War in the 1720s, but the factory was rebuilt forging iron blades and ploughs until finally closing in 1902.
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Pyhän Laurin Kirkko
Lohja's church, Pyhän Laurin Kirkko is in the heart of town. It has a great wooden belltower and some of the finest murals (not strictly frescoes) in the region. Rustic and charming in style, they sequentially depict stories from both Testaments and date from the early 16th century.
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Loviisa Church
On the market square, the impressive red-brick neo-Gothic Loviisa Church, built in 1865, is a dominant feature; guides are on hand in summer to give free tours. It was designed by Georg Theodor Chiewitz, who also designed many of the civic buildings in the wake of the blaze.
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Lohja Museum
Lohja Museum recreates a schoolhouse, and a cowherd’s cottage with an impressive range of horse-drawn carriages, including an old-style hearse. The main building is a former vicarage for the nearby church, and it has innovative special exhibitions in summer.
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