Luostarinmäki Handicrafts Museum

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Lonely Planet review

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 like stepping back in time. There are about 30 furnished workshops altogether, including a printing press, silversmith, watchmaker, bakery and cigar shop. In summer, artisans in period costume work inside the old wooden houses and musicians stroll its paths. There are guided tours in English given roughly hourly from to in the height of summer. There's also a good café, and a gift shop selling products made in the village.