Where to Stay in Janakkala, Kanta-Häme

Janakkala is known for its medieval ground in the heart of Kanta-Häme, southern Finland, where the Hakoisten linnavuori rises as one of the old hill forts of Häme. The municipality keeps deep memory. Its centre holds the medieval Pyhän Laurin kirkko by the spring of the Laurinlähde, the manor of Leppäkosken kartano stands in the country, and the village of Turenki gathers the modern municipality around the Turengin rautatieasema on the main line through southern Finland.

The Hakoisten linnavuori is the great landmark of Janakkala, a medieval hill fort rising over the country of Kanta-Häme, while the Unikonlinna stands as another of the old forts of the municipality. Stone faith holds the centre. Rising by the holy spring of the Laurinlähde, the medieval Pyhän Laurin kirkko anchors the parish, the mill village keeps the Tervakosken kirkko, and the manor of Leppäkosken kartano stands in the farmland.

The railway left its mark too. In the village of Turenki the Turengin rautatieasema recalls the line that ran the main route through this part of southern Finland.

Janakkala holds some of the oldest ground of inland Finland. The hill forts of the Hakoisten linnavuori and the Unikonlinna rose over the country of Häme in the early medieval centuries, strongholds of the people of the inland lakes, and the parish later raised the stone Pyhän Laurin kirkko by the holy spring of the Laurinlähde. Häme was the heart of this land.

Manors spread across the farmland of Kanta-Häme, among them the Leppäkosken kartano, and the parish worked the fields and forests of southern Finland through the centuries. Industry and rail remade the modern municipality. The main line south brought the Turengin rautatieasema to the village of Turenki, which grew into the working centre of Janakkala, while the paper mill at Tervakoski raised its own community around the Tervakosken kirkko.

Chartered in 1866, Janakkala gathered the old parish ground of Häme under one council, and the forts, churches and manors of the country still draw visitors to this corner of Kanta-Häme.

Janakkala lies in the lake-and-farm country of Kanta-Häme, in southern Finland, an inland municipality of low ridges and water. Fields, forests and lakes spread across the parish, the village of Turenki gathered on the main line, the Hakoisten linnavuori rising as a ridge over the country. Water breaks the land.

Eskers and lakes cut through the farmland of the municipality, the medieval Pyhän Laurin kirkko standing among the fields, and the wider inland country of Kanta-Häme reaches away from Janakkala far from any coast.

Janakkala has a cool continental climate, tempered a little by its place in southern Kanta-Häme but still set hard by the inland lakes and forests. Winters are cold and snowy, frost gripping the fields and the lakes of the municipality from early in the season until the spring thaw across this part of southern Finland. Summers are warm and green.

The long northern light warms the farmland and the woods around the village of Turenki through the growing season, the season when most visitors come to see the forts and churches of Janakkala.

Janakkala sits on the main rail line through Kanta-Häme, and the train is an easy way in to the municipality. Services stop at the Turengin rautatieasema in the village of Turenki, linking Janakkala to the larger towns of southern Finland along the line. The line runs straight through.

The main road and buses also cross the municipality, joining the villages of Janakkala to the rest of Kanta-Häme, and visitors come through the bigger towns before driving the last stretch out to the hill forts and the medieval church.