Where to Stay in Askola, Uusimaa

Askola is known as a rural parish of Uusimaa, a quiet inland municipality of southern Finland chartered in 1896 and famous for some of the oldest Stone Age finds in the country. Deep time marks the land here. The ancient site of Kopinkallio holds traces of the earliest settlers, while the Askolan kirkko with its bell tower, the old village of Vakkola, and the youth home of the writer Johannes Linnankoski draw the eye to the more recent story of the parish.

The Askolan kirkko is the chief landmark of the village, the parish church standing beside its freestanding bell tower, the Askolan kirkon tapuli. Stone and history fill the parish. The ancient site of Kopinkallio and the cup-marked stones of Paavola carry the deepest past, the manor of Prestbacka and the Särkijärven kylä- ja kartanomaisema hold the old estate country, and the museum and youth home of Johannes Linnankoski, with the old village of Vakkola, keep the more recent memory of this corner of Uusimaa in southern Finland.

Askola holds some of the oldest signs of human life in Finland, the Stone Age site of Kopinkallio bearing traces of settlers who came as the ice withdrew, and the cup-marked stones of Paavola and the burial ground of Kalmistomäki marking the long ages of habitation across this inland country of Uusimaa. The old village of Vakkola grew on the river as the heart of the early parish. Faith and estate followed.

The Askolan kirkko rose with its freestanding bell tower as the centre of the country folk, while the manor of Prestbacka and the village-and-manor landscape of Särkijärvi shaped the surrounding farms of southern Finland. The parish became a municipality in 1896, taking its own standing in the rural country east of the capital. Johannes Linnankoski, the writer, spent his youth here, and his childhood home is kept as a museum beside the parish, the Askolan kotiseutumuseo gathering the old tools and life of the country folk.

Through the centuries Askola has lived by its fields, forests, and river, the old farms and manors standing among the woods, and the municipality endures as a quiet rural corner of Uusimaa in southern Finland.

Askola spreads across an inland country of low ridges, fields, and forest in Uusimaa, set in the rural interior of southern Finland east of the capital. A river threads the parish. Cultivated fields follow the water through the land, with the village and the Askolan kirkko set among them and the old riverside village of Vakkola nearby.

Forest and rock close the edges. Wooded ridges and ancient outcrops such as Kopinkallio rise from the farmland, the scattered farms and the manor of Prestbacka lie among the woods, and the quiet rural landscape of Uusimaa fills this corner of southern Finland.

Askola has a cool inland climate, set back from the coast in the rural interior of southern Finland where the seasons swing wide. Winter holds long and white. Snow covers the fields and the Askolan kirkko from late autumn into spring, the river ices over, and short dark days settle across the inland country of Uusimaa.

Summer breaks warm and green. The long northern daylight ripens the river fields and the forests, the warm weeks draw the parish back to life, and the woods and farms around Vakkola fill with the brief bright season of southern Finland.

Askola lies on the inland road network of Uusimaa, a short way north of the coast road, and the highway is the way in. Buses serve the village. Coaches run from the larger towns of southern Finland along the country roads to the parish centre near the Askolan kirkko, carrying travellers into the rural inland.

No railway reaches the parish. The nearest lines run through the towns to the south, and from their stations the road brings travellers on into Askola, while most drive the country routes through the fields and woods to reach the village and the old settlement of Vakkola.