Where to stay in Hauho
The right area depends on your trip. Here's who each one suits — pick the place, then the hotel.
Hauho keeps only a scatter of beds across a lakeside parish of Kanta-Häme, with no town to gather them. The village centre by the Hauhon kirkko is the natural base, a quiet place from which the shops and the medieval church sit within a short walk and the rest of the parish lies an easy drive away. Rooms are scarce here.
Around the lakes that ring the village, holiday cottages stand among the forests and shores, drawing visitors who want a calm base on the water rather than a town, near the old rural buildings of the Kotkon ulkomuseoalue. The cottages fill in summer. For a wider choice of hotels, many travellers instead sleep in the larger town of Hämeenlinna and drive out to Hauho for the day, touring the lakeside country of southern Finland from there.
The parish suits walkers, boaters and visitors to the open-air museum, who base in a cottage and reach the church village and the lakes by car. Book ahead in the warm months, when the cottages around Hauho go early.
About Hauho
What is Hauho known for?
Hauho is known for its old stone church and lakeside farms, a parish of Kanta-Häme in southern Finland. The Hauhon kirkko stands at the village heart, the medieval church that marks the centre of the parish. Lakes ring the village.
The open-air museum of the Kotkon ulkomuseoalue keeps the old rural buildings of the district, and farms and forest spread across the gentle country of this corner of southern Finland, now part of the larger town of Hämeenlinna.
What are the main landmarks in Hauho?
The Hauhon kirkko is the landmark that defines Hauho, a medieval stone church at the heart of the parish in this corner of Kanta-Häme. An open-air museum keeps the rest. The old rural buildings of the Kotkon ulkomuseoalue stand gathered as a museum of the district, while the memorials of the parish, the Punaisten hauta and the war memorial at the Hauhon kirkko, recall the dead of the conflicts that crossed this part of southern Finland.
What is the history of Hauho?
Hauho is one of the oldest parishes of the Häme country. Its medieval stone church, the Hauhon kirkko, rose in the Middle Ages to serve the farms and lakeshore villages scattered across this part of Kanta-Häme, and the parish gathered its life around the church through the long centuries of southern Finland. Farm and forest fed the people.
Crops, fish and timber sustained a slow rural economy, the old rural buildings of which survive in the open-air museum of the Kotkon ulkomuseoalue. The modern age left its harder marks. The civil conflict reached the parish, remembered in the Punaisten hauta and the war memorial that stand by the Hauhon kirkko, recalling the dead of the troubled years.
Then the map redrew itself. Hauho lost its standing as a separate municipality and was joined to the larger town of Hämeenlinna, yet it kept its church, its lakes and its village heart as a parish of Kanta-Häme in southern Finland.
Where is Hauho?
Hauho lies in the lake and farm country of Kanta-Häme, in southern Finland, a parish ringed by water. Lakes, low hills and forest fill the district, the village centre gathered by the Hauhon kirkko while the shores and fields spread out around it. Water lies on every side.
The old rural buildings of the Kotkon ulkomuseoalue stand among the woods of the parish, and the gentle country runs away into the wider Häme landscape of this part of southern Finland toward Hämeenlinna.
What is the climate of Hauho?
Hauho has a cold inland climate, its seasons set by the lakes and forests of southern Finland. Winters are long and snowed, the cold settling over the shores and fields of the parish from autumn until a late thaw across the Häme country of Kanta-Häme. Summers are warm and bright.
The long northern daylight ripens the crops and warms the lakes around Hauho through a short growing season, the gentlest stretch of the year in this part of southern Finland.
How do you get to Hauho?
Hauho is reached by road across the lake country of Kanta-Häme, in southern Finland. Most visitors come by car or bus to the village centre by the Hauhon kirkko, the church village at the heart of the parish. There is no station here.
Travellers from farther afield reach this part of southern Finland through the larger town of Hämeenlinna, which holds the nearest rail links, before driving the last stretch out to the lakes and the open-air museum of the Kotkon ulkomuseoalue.
Where Hauho sits
Boundaries © geoBoundaries (CC BY) & Wikidata (CC0); water & neighbours: Natural Earth.