Where to Stay in Puumala, Southern Savonia

Puumala is a town of islands and water in Southern Savonia, set among the channels of Saimaa in eastern Finland, in the lakeland. The Johannes Kastajan kirkko stands at its centre, and the Saimaa Geopark gathers the rock and shoreline of the great lake into a protected landscape around it. War history runs deep here.

The Salpalinja, the defensive bunker line of the eastern border, and the Suvorovin sotakanavat dug in earlier centuries both reach into this watery corner of the country.

The Johannes Kastajan kirkko anchors Puumala, the parish church beside the harbour with the Puumalan kirkon tapuli, its separate bell tower, standing close by. The Saimaa Geopark gathers the cliffs and shores of the lake, where ancient rock paintings such as the Kuutinvuoren kalliomaalaus survive on the stone above the water. History is layered here.

The Salpalinja bunker line and the Suvorovin sotakanavat mark the military past of the eastern border, while the Kukonharjun kanava and the Ihanteensalon linnavuori hillfort carry the older story of this lakeland.

Puumala grew on the channels of Saimaa in Southern Savonia, a lakeland community whose life was shaped from the start by the water around it in eastern Finland. The rock paintings of the Saimaa Geopark, such as the Kuutinvuoren kalliomaalaus, show that people lived along these shores in the deep past, and the Ihanteensalon linnavuori hillfort marks a later age of refuge on the lake. Water was both road and frontier.

The Suvorovin sotakanavat were cut in the 18th century to move boats through the channels for the army of the empire, and the Kukonharjun kanava of 1790 opened another passage between the lakes, the parish gathering meanwhile around the church that preceded the present Johannes Kastajan kirkko. Its eastern border made Puumala a place of defence again in the last century. The Salpalinja bunker line was built through this country to hold the frontier, and the long military story of the lakeland still runs beside the older life of farming, fishing and the church, the town keeping its history in stone and water alike.

Puumala lies in eastern Finland, in the lakeland, where the wide municipality breaks into islands, headlands and narrow channels across the body of Saimaa. The great lake shapes everything, its water threading between the forested ridges of Southern Savonia from the town centre out to the far skerries. Here the lake is the land.

Cliffs and shores around the channels fall within the Saimaa Geopark, the cleft rock and deep water that mark this corner of the eastern lakes.

Puumala has a cold lakeland climate, the year set by its place among the waters of Saimaa in eastern Finland. Winters run long and snowy, the channels freezing hard and the forests of Southern Savonia held under frost through many months before the late spring. Then the lake opens.

Summer brings long, bright days and warm water, the short, intense season when travellers take to the channels of Saimaa around Puumala under the long northern light.

Puumala sits among the lakes of Southern Savonia, reached by car on the roads that wind between the channels of Saimaa in eastern Finland. A bridge and a ferry carry the route across the water to the town, and buses link it to the larger centres of the region. Many arrive over the water.

The nearest rail and air connections lie in the bigger towns of the lakeland, from which travellers drive the last stretch to the channels of Saimaa.