Where to Stay in Hollola, Paijat-Hame Region

Hollola is known as one of the old pitäjä parishes of Päijät-Häme in southern Finland, its grey-stone Hollolan kirkko among the oldest in the region. History sits in the soil. The hill-fort of Kapatuosia rises above the historic church centre, the Salpausselkä Geopark runs its ridge through the municipality, and manors like Voistion kartano spread across this stretch of countryside beside Lahti.

The Hollolan kirkko is the landmark of the parish, a medieval grey-stone church at the historic centre of Hollola in Päijät-Häme, its detached belfry the Hollolan kirkon tapuli standing beside it. History lies thick here. Above the church rises the hill-fort of Kapatuosia, while the old church ruin of Hämeenkosken vanha kirkko and the church of Hämeenkosken kirkko mark the western reaches, and the Hollolan kotiseutumuseo and the timber Hollolan kunnantupa keep the local story along the Salpausselkä ridge.

Hollola is old. Settlement here reaches back before written record, the hill-forts of Kapatuosia and Hankaan linnavuori raised on the heights of Päijät-Häme to guard the early farming district of southern Finland. The land was settled early.

As the medieval church spread through Häme, the grey-stone Hollolan kirkko rose at the parish centre with its detached belfry, the Hollolan kirkon tapuli, and Hollola became one of the great mother parishes from which later congregations were carved. Farming, manors and a few small works carried the centuries. Manor estates such as Voistion kartano and Kurjalan kartano spread across the countryside, while the western villages kept their own churches at Hämeenkosken kirkko and the old ruin of Hämeenkosken vanha kirkko.

Hollola was set on its modern footing when it was chartered in 1865, a municipality of Päijät-Häme beside the growing city of Lahti, its long story now gathered in the Hollolan kotiseutumuseo by the historic church centre.

Hollola lies in southern Finland, a broad municipality of Päijät-Häme of ridge, lake and farmland west of Lahti. The Salpausselkä shapes the land. Its great glacial ridge, protected as the Salpausselkä Geopark, runs through the municipality, with the hill of Tiirismäki rising among its heights while lakes and clay fields spread below.

Gathered on its rise by the Hollolan kirkko, the historic church centre anchors the villages and manors of this old parish scattered across the countryside of southern Finland.

Hollola has the continental weather of southern Finland, its seasons sharpened by an inland setting on the Salpausselkä ridge. Winter holds the long cold. Snow lies deep across the ridge and farmland around the Hollolan kirkko, lying late on the heights of the Salpausselkä Geopark, before the season breaks and the brief warm summers draw walkers onto the lakes and fields of this corner of Päijät-Häme west of Lahti.

Hollola is reached most easily through neighbouring Lahti, a municipality of Päijät-Häme with no major station of its own. Most arrive by road. The main roads run west from Lahti and on across southern Finland, threading the Salpausselkä ridge and the lakes to the villages and the historic church centre by the Hollolan kirkko.

Rail and bus reach the wider region through Lahti, and from there local roads spread out across the old parish of Hollola.