Must see attractions in Helsinki

Suomenlinna, the ‘fortress of Finland’, straddles a cluster of car-free islands connected by bridges. This Unesco World Heritage site was originally built…

Occupying a palatial 1887 neo-Renaissance building, Finland’s premier art gallery offers a crash course in the nation’s art. It houses Finnish paintings…

An unmissable stop for Finnish design aficionados, Helsinki's Design Museum has a permanent collection that looks at the roots of Finnish design in the…

Built in National Romantic art nouveau style and opened in 1916, Finland’s premier historical museum looks a bit like a Gothic church with its heavy…

Situated 5.5km northwest of the city centre, this excellent island-set museum has a collection of 87 historic wooden buildings transferred here from…

One in a series of elegant, contemporary buildings in this part of town, curvaceous, metallic Kiasma, designed by Steven Holl and finished in 1998, is a…

Set beneath the iconic 1936 Lasipalatsi building, art museum Amos Rex opened in 2018. Sweeping staircases take you below ground to the exhibition halls…

Rambling over 4 hectares in the city centre alongside the north harbour, Töölönlahti, Helsinki's botanic gardens are filled with plants from Finland and…

This museum complex spreads over five buildings from different eras, including Sederholmin talo, Helsinki’s oldest central building (dating from 1757 and…

Locally known as 'Espa', oblong-shaped Esplanadi stretches for four blocks between the squares Erottaja to the west and the kauppatori to the east…

One of Helsinki's finest collections of classic European paintings is in these 1842-built former brewery offices, which also contained living quarters for…

Hewn into solid stone, the Temppeliaukion church, designed by Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen in 1969, feels close to a Finnish ideal of spirituality in nature…

Finland's architecture museum occupies a neo-Rennaissance building dating from 1899. Exhibitions are its key focus, including the fascinating Decades of…

On the waterfront, this sprawling park dating from 1834 is a favourite Helsinki idyll. There are expanses of lawns; numerous sculptures and winding paths;…

Perhaps the most interesting of the museums at Suomenlinna, this was once the home of Augustin Ehrensvärd, who designed the fortress, and later the…

One of Carl Ludvig Engel’s finest creations, the chalk-white neoclassical Lutheran cathedral presides over Senaatintori (Senate Sq). Created to serve as a…

A three-storey wooden cottage houses this delightful private collection of hundreds of dolls and nearly as many teddy bears, dating from the early 19th…

Built in 2012 by Helsinki architectural firm K2S, this exquisite, ultracontemporary curvilinear chapel is constructed from wood (wax-treated spruce…

This fascinating museum by Kaivopuisto was the home of Baron Gustav Mannerheim, former president, commander in chief of the Finnish army and Finnish Civil…

Inside the Tennispalatsi, Helsinki's contemporary-art museum oversees 9000 works, including 3500 citywide public artworks. The overwhelming majority of…