Where to Stay in Mikkeli, Southern Savonia

Mikkeli is known as the capital of South Savo, the lake-country town that grew up around the Mikkelin tuomiokirkko in eastern Finland, in the lakeland. Its older roots show in the medieval Savilahden kivisakasti, the stone sacristy that survives from the first church on the site. The war marks its name.

Mikkeli served as the wartime headquarters of the Finnish army, a story kept in the Päämajamuseo and the signals bunker of the Viestikeskus Lokki, with the Mannerheimin patsas standing in the town that ran the front.

The Mikkelin tuomiokirkko is the signature landmark of Mikkeli, the brick cathedral on the hill above the town of South Savo. Older still is the Savilahden kivisakasti, the medieval stone sacristy left from the first church on the site, and the Naisvuoren vesitorni that rises over the streets as a viewing tower. War left a thick layer of monuments.

The Päämajamuseo and the Viestikeskus Lokki keep the story of the wartime headquarters, the Jalkaväkimuseo records the infantry, and the Mannerheimin patsas stands among the museums of this lakeland seat in eastern Finland.

Mikkeli stands on old ground in the Savo lakeland. Long before the town was drawn up, a church served the parish here, and the medieval Savilahden kivisakasti still survives as the stone sacristy of that first place of worship in eastern Finland, in the lakeland. The town came later.

Mikkeli was chartered in 1838, a planned market town for the lake country of South Savo, and it grew through the 19th century around the hill where the Mikkelin tuomiokirkko would rise as the cathedral of the new diocese. Its strangest chapter belongs to the wars. Mikkeli was chosen as the headquarters of the Finnish defence forces, and from this lakeland town the high command directed the front, a story now kept in the Päämajamuseo, the signals bunker of the Viestikeskus Lokki and the Jalkaväkimuseo.

The Mannerheimin patsas stands in the streets in memory of those years. Around the war museums the older town remains, the cathedral and the Naisvuoren vesitorni on their hills, the Suur-Savon museo holding the longer past of a seat that has long governed the lakeland of Southern Savonia.

Mikkeli lies in eastern Finland, in the lakeland, the seat of Southern Savonia spread over a wide reach of water and forest. Lakes wrap the town on every side, the centre gathered on the hills below the Mikkelin tuomiokirkko while bays and headlands run out into the surrounding country. The water shapes the whole municipality.

Visulahti sits on a lakeshore at the edge of town, the Naisvuoren vesitorni looks out over the islands and inlets, and the wide territory of Mikkeli stretches across the forests and waters of South Savo toward the rest of the eastern lakeland.

Mikkeli has a cold lakeland climate, with the sharp seasons of eastern Finland. Winters are long and snow-bound, the lakes around the town freezing into roads of ice and the cold holding over the streets below the Mikkelin tuomiokirkko from early in the season until the spring thaw breaks the surface. Summers come short and warm.

The long northern daylight heats the water of the lakeland through a brief bright season, drawing visitors to Visulahti and the lakeshores of South Savo while the warmth holds over Mikkeli.

Mikkeli is the road and rail hub of the South Savo lakeland, and reaching it is easy. Trains and buses run to the town across eastern Finland, in the lakeland, the lines threading between the lakes to the station near the centre. The car comes into its own here.

From the station and the main roads it is a short way to the heart of Mikkeli below the Mikkelin tuomiokirkko, and on to Visulahti by the water and the war museums of this seat of Southern Savonia.