Where to Stay in Viitasaari, Central Finland

Viitasaari is known as a lake town, set on the long water of Keitele in the heart of the Central Finland lakeland. The shores hold hundreds of lakes, among them Kolima and Muuruejärvi, and the water shapes the life of the place. The lakes are everything here.

Above the town the Savivuoren näkötorni gives a view over the maze of water and forest, while the old Viitasaaren kirkko marks the centre and the Viitasaaren metsätyömuseo keeps the memory of the forest work that long sustained this part of central Finland.

Viitasaaren kirkko marks the centre of Viitasaari, the parish church standing among the lakeshore town. Above it rises the Savivuoren näkötorni, a lookout tower with a wide view over Keitele and the surrounding forest and water. The woods left their own museum.

The Viitasaaren metsätyömuseo tells the story of the logging and timber-floating that long worked the Central Finland forests, while the old Vuorelan talo counts among the heritage houses of the town and the Viitasaaren helluntaiseurakunta among its later congregations.

Viitasaari was chartered as a parish in 1635, taking its name and its life from the waters of the Central Finland lakeland. The parish gathered around its church on the shore of Keitele, and the people of the surrounding land lived by farming the thin lakeside ground and working the great forests that ring the hundreds of lakes of this part of central Finland. The forest fed the town.

Logging and the floating of timber down Keitele and the lesser waters of Kolima carried the trade that long sustained the settlement, a story now kept in the Viitasaaren metsätyömuseo. Viitasaari grew from parish into a market and forest town as the centuries passed, lying between Pihtipudas to the north and Äänekoski to the south on the long lake route through Central Finland. Viitasaaren kirkko held the centre, the Savivuoren näkötorni later rose above the town for the view, and the old Vuorelan talo remained from the days of the lakeside farms.

Through it all the water kept its hold, and Viitasaari stayed what it had been from the start, a town of the lakes set among the forests of central Finland.

Viitasaari lies in the lakeland of central Finland, its broad municipality threaded by hundreds of lakes. The town sits on Keitele, the long water that runs through the district, with Kolima and Muuruejärvi among the larger lakes and a good share of the whole area given over to water. Islands and forest break the shores.

The land of Viitasaari spreads between Pihtipudas to the north and Äänekoski to the south, a country of pine forest, lake and scattered farm typical of the Central Finland interior.

Viitasaari has the cold, sharp-seasoned climate of the central Finland interior, far from the moderating sea. Winters are long and snowy, the hundreds of lakes around Keitele freezing hard from early in the season until the late spring thaw. Summers are warm and bright.

The long northern daylight warms the water and the forest through the short growing season, drawing cottagers to the shores of Kolima and Muuruejärvi before the cold settles back over the lakeland.

Viitasaari is reached by road through the lakeland of central Finland. The main north-south route carries most of the traffic, running past Äänekoski to the south and on toward Pihtipudas in the north, and visitors come by car or bus. There is no station in the town.

The centre with Viitasaaren kirkko lies off the through road on the shore of Keitele, and travellers from farther afield reach Central Finland through the larger cities before driving the last stretch to the lakes around Viitasaari.