Introduction
The region's name is not a boast but a description: this is where Finland's recorded history begins. Turku, on the Aura river near the mouth of the archipelago, was the country's principal city and its capital for centuries, and it holds the two greatest medieval buildings in Finland — a castle and a cathedral, at opposite ends of the same river.
Overview
Turku dominates the region and deserves to. It is Finland's oldest city, it was the capital until the early nineteenth century when that status moved east to Helsinki, and losing the title left it with the architecture and the institutions of a capital and the pace of a provincial town — which is a pleasant combination to visit. The Aura river runs through the middle and is genuinely the city's spine: the cathedral stands at one end, the castle guards the river mouth at the other, and the banks between them carry the university, the market square, the museums and, in summer, a line of permanently moored boats converted into bars and restaurants that function as the city's social centre. Beyond Turku, the region runs out into the beginnings of the Archipelago Sea — this is the mainland doorway to the island route — and along a coast of small towns and summer settlements. Naantali, a short distance west, keeps a preserved old town of wooden houses and is also where the Moomin theme park sits, which makes the region the obvious destination in Finland for families with young children. Inland the landscape is gentle farmland and oak woods, unusual in a country of pine and spruce. The region is compact, easily covered from a single base, and mild by Finnish standards, with a longer season than almost anywhere else in the country.
Discover Finland Proper
Finland has two great medieval buildings and both are in this city, at either end of its river. The castle, begun in the thirteenth century near the river mouth, is one of the largest surviving medieval structures in the Nordic countries — a grey stone bulk that grew through six centuries of extension, siege, fire and use as a granary and a prison, and is now a museum you can spend half a day inside, moving between rough medieval halls and later Renaissance rooms. The cathedral, at the other end, is the mother church of the country and its national shrine, its interior lined with the tombs and memorials of people who shaped Finland. Neither is decorative; both are the physical evidence of a period when this city, not Helsinki, was the point around which the country turned.
Ways to Experience This Destination
A thirteenth-century riverside castle, one of the largest medieval buildings in the Nordics, and the national cathedral at the other end of the same river.
Walking or cycling the Aura end to end, and the line of permanently moored boats along the quays working as the city's bars, cafés and restaurants.
Naantali's preserved wooden old town and its Moomin theme park on an island, in the mildest and most compact corner of Finland for travelling with small children.
The mainland doorway to the Archipelago Sea, plus a coast of small harbours, summer houses and the oak woodland that grows almost nowhere else in Finland.
Frequently asked questions
Treat this Visaja page as your starting point: verify the current rules directly with the official source before you submit an application.