Where to Stay in Hämeenlinna, Kanta-Häme

Hämeenlinna is known as the oldest inland town in Finland, grown up beneath its medieval fortress on Lake Vanajavesi in Kanta-Häme. The red-brick Hämeen linna is the great draw. The composer Jean Sibelius was born here, his childhood rooms kept as the Sibeliuksen syntymäkoti, while the wooded ridge of Aulanko rises above the lake with the Aulangon näkötorni crowning its viewpoint over southern Finland.

The medieval Hämeen linna is the landmark that defines Hämeenlinna, a great red-brick fortress raised on the shore of Lake Vanajavesi in Kanta-Häme. Many churches ring the town. The neoclassical Hämeenlinnan kirkko stands in the centre, the rural Vanajan kirkko and the Russian garrison church among them.

Museums fill the old houses. The Sibeliuksen syntymäkoti keeps the composer's birthplace, the Hämeenlinnan taidemuseo holds the art, the Palanderin talo preserves a merchant home, and the Vankilamuseo tells of the old prison, while above the lake the Aulangon näkötorni crowns the wooded ridge of Aulanko over southern Finland.

Hämeenlinna grew up in the shadow of a crusader's castle. The Swedes raised the great fortress of Hämeen linna on the shore of Lake Vanajavesi in the thirteenth century to hold the interior of the land, and a trading settlement gathered beneath its walls, becoming the oldest inland town in Finland. The town was formally chartered in 1639.

For centuries it served as a market and administrative seat for the wide farm country of Häme, its old parish recalled by the rural Vanajan kirkko on the lake. The modern town took shape around the castle and the water. The neoclassical Hämeenlinnan kirkko rose in the planned centre, a Russian garrison settled here and built its own church, and the fortress later held a prison whose memory survives in the Vankilamuseo.

This town gave Finland its great composer. Jean Sibelius was born in the centre, his home now the Sibeliuksen syntymäkoti, and the lakeside ridge of Aulanko was landscaped into a famous park crowned by the Aulangon näkötorni above southern Finland.

Hämeenlinna lies in the lake-strewn interior of Kanta-Häme, in southern Finland, spread along the shore of Lake Vanajavesi. Water and ridge frame the town. The castle stands on the lake while the wooded heights of Aulanko rise to the north, their slopes falling to the water that threads the country in a chain of connected lakes.

Forest and farm surround the rest. The fertile fields of Häme run out from the shore, and the lakeland of southern Finland stretches around Hämeenlinna toward the neighbouring towns of the region.

Hämeenlinna has a cold inland climate typical of the lake country of southern Finland, away from the moderating sea. Winters are long and snowy, ice locking Lake Vanajavesi for months while frost settles over the castle, the town, and the wooded ridge of Aulanko through the dark season of Kanta-Häme. Summers are warm and green.

The long northern daylight thaws the lake and brings people to the shore and parkland around Hämeenlinna, the brief bright months before the snow returns to the interior.

Hämeenlinna sits on the main railway and motorway through the interior of southern Finland, midway on the route between the two largest cities, and access is fast. Trains stop in the centre near the castle, and the motorway carries cars and buses straight to the lake town of Kanta-Häme. The lakes once carried the trade.

Vanajavesi and the connected waters served as a route in earlier centuries, while most visitors now arrive by rail or road, drawn to the Hämeen linna fortress on the shore of Lake Vanajavesi.