Where to stay in Muurame
The right area depends on your trip. Here's who each one suits — pick the place, then the hotel.
Muurame keeps a modest stock of beds for a lakeland town of Central Finland, the kind of place where a small hotel, a guesthouse or a lakeside cabin near the centre is the usual room. The centre around the white Muuramen kirkko suits visitors who want the town on foot, with the modernist church, the shops and the waterfront all within easy reach of the core. It is the simplest base.
Out at Kinkomaa, where the old sanatorium grounds of the Kinkomaan sairaala stand on a wooded ridge above the lake, and across the lakes and forests of the wider Muuramen kunta, cottages and cabins stand among the trees, a good base for touring this corner of the central Finnish lakeland by car. Stock is thin once you leave the centre. Many travellers instead sleep in the larger towns of Central Finland and drive in to Muurame for the day.
Book ahead in summer, when the lakeside cabins fill and the few rooms in the centre go early.
About Muurame
What is Muurame known for?
Muurame is known as a lakeland town of Central Finland, its waters and forests filling the kunta of Muuramen kunta. The white Muuramen kirkko, a modernist parish church, is the landmark most closely tied to the town. Design marks this place.
Out at Kinkomaa, the old sanatorium grounds of the Kinkomaan sairaala stand on a wooded ridge above the lake, a second well-known site of the municipality in this part of the central Finnish lakeland.
What are the main landmarks in Muurame?
The white Muuramen kirkko is the landmark that marks the town, a modernist parish church standing at the heart of Muurame in Central Finland. Its clean lines set it apart among the older village churches of the lakeland. Design defines it.
Out at Kinkomaa, the sanatorium grounds of the Kinkomaan sairaala spread across a wooded ridge above the water, a second protected site of the Muuramen kunta, and the lakes and forests around the town complete the lakeland setting.
What is the history of Muurame?
Muurame's history is that of a lakeland parish of Central Finland that came into its own in the modern age. A settlement of farms and lakeshore villages, the kunta of Muuramen kunta was chartered as its own municipality in 1921, gathering the scattered homesteads of the central Finnish lakeland under one parish. Farm and water came first.
People here had long worked the woods and fished the lakes before the town took its modern shape. The twentieth century left the town its best-known buildings. The white Muuramen kirkko rose as a modernist parish church, its clean design making it the landmark of the place, while out at Kinkomaa the Kinkomaan sairaala was built as a sanatorium on a wooded ridge above the water, treating patients in the clean lakeland air.
Water held the town's life through these years, the lakes carrying timber and travellers across this part of Central Finland. Muurame settled into its role as a lakeland town, its centre still gathered by the modernist church above the shore.
Where is Muurame?
Muurame lies in the lake-and-forest country of Central Finland, set among the waters of the lakeland. Lakes, bays and pinewoods fill the kunta of Muuramen kunta, the town centre gathered by the modernist Muuramen kirkko near the shore while water spreads out on every side. The lakeland runs deep here.
The wooded ridge at Kinkomaa, where the old grounds of the Kinkomaan sairaala stand above the water, rises to the side, and the lakes around the town link Muurame into the wide central Finnish waterways.
What is the climate of Muurame?
Muurame has a cold lakeland climate set by the waters and forests of Central Finland. Winters are long and snowy, hard frost gripping the lakes and the pinewoods around the town from early in the season until the late spring thaw. Summers are warm and light.
The long northern daylight warms the lakes and woods through the short growing season around Muurame, the season when the lakeside cabins fill before the snow returns to the central Finnish lakeland.
How do you get to Muurame?
Muurame sits on the main road through the lakeland of Central Finland, and the car is the usual way in. Travellers reach the town along the highway that runs down the central Finnish lakeland, the modernist Muuramen kirkko marking the centre near the shore on arrival. The road carries most arrivals.
Buses link the kunta of Muuramen kunta to the larger towns of Central Finland, and visitors from farther off come through those towns before the last stretch into Muurame by the water.
Where Muurame sits
Boundaries © geoBoundaries (CC BY) & Wikidata (CC0); water & neighbours: Natural Earth.