Where to Stay in Ekenäs, Uusimaa

Ekenäs is known for its old wooden town by the sea, a Swedish-speaking coastal town of Uusimaa that the Finnish call Tammisaari, set on the archipelago shore of southern Finland. The narrow lanes of the wooden Old Town run down to the water, the timber houses like the Adolfssonin talo standing as they have for a very long time. Wood and water make the place.

The Tammisaaren kirkko rises over the town, the museums of the Museokeskus EKTA and the Västra Nylands landskapsmuseum keep the past of this corner of the coast, and the town now forms part of the city of Raseborg.

The wooden Old Town is the landmark that tells Ekenäs apart, its timber lanes and houses like the Adolfssonin talo running down to the archipelago shore of Uusimaa. The Tammisaaren kirkko rises in stone over the roofs of the town the Finnish call Tammisaari. Wood below, stone above.

The museums of the Museokeskus EKTA and the Västra Nylands landskapsmuseum keep the long story of this coast, the old seminary director's house of the Tammisaaren seminaarin johtajan asunto recalls the town's schooling, and the whole place now stands within the city of Raseborg on the southern Finnish shore.

Ekenäs is one of the older towns of the southern Finnish coast. The place was chartered in the 16th century, in 1564, founded as a trading town on the archipelago shore of Uusimaa, the Swedish-speaking settlement that the Finnish call Tammisaari taking shape around its harbour and its market. The sea made the town.

Merchants and seafarers built the timber houses of the Old Town, the Tammisaaren kirkko rose to serve the parish, and the narrow wooden lanes grew street by street between the water and the church through the long centuries that followed. Schooling and trade shaped the later town. A teacher's seminary brought learning to Ekenäs, remembered in the old director's house of the Tammisaaren seminaarin johtajan asunto, while houses like the Adolfssonin talo preserve the look of the old wooden quarter.

The past is well kept here. The museums of the Museokeskus EKTA and the Västra Nylands landskapsmuseum gather the story of the coast, and in the municipal reform Ekenäs was joined into the larger city of Raseborg, keeping its old name and its wooden streets within the new whole.

Ekenäs lies on the archipelago coast of Uusimaa, in southern Finland, where the mainland breaks into a maze of islands and sheltered water. The wooden town sits on a point by the sea, the bays and skerries reaching out before it and the forested mainland rising behind. Islands fill the seaward view.

The Tammisaaren kirkko marks the centre of the old town the Finnish call Tammisaari, the harbour opens to the sound, and the wide municipality of Raseborg runs on along the southern Finnish shore and back into the woods and lakes inland from Ekenäs.

Ekenäs keeps the mild coastal weather of the Uusimaa archipelago, its seasons tempered by the sea of southern Finland. Winters are cold but eased by the water, the ice forming late among the islands and the snow lighter on the coast than in the cold interior of the country. Summers are long and bright.

The northern light warms the town and the skerries through a generous season, the sea holding the day's heat into the evening around the harbour of Tammisaari, before the early grey of autumn settles over the coast of Raseborg.

Ekenäs is reached by rail and road from the cities of southern Finland. Trains stop at the town on the coastal line of Uusimaa, and roads run down through the woods to the wooden streets by the harbour, the journey easy from the capital region. Train or car, both serve well.

Buses link the town the Finnish call Tammisaari to the rest of the city of Raseborg and the coast, while in summer the archipelago opens to small boats, and visitors set out from the harbour of Ekenäs among the islands and skerries of the southern shore.