Where to stay in Suurmetsä
The right area depends on your trip. Here's who each one suits — pick the place, then the hotel.
Suurmetsä is a quiet residential corner of Helsinki with little in the way of hotels. The trains are its link. A stay among the eastern suburbs near Tapanila and Puistola puts the rail line into central Helsinki within reach, a calm and wooded base away from the city's pace.
Who it suits: you want a low-key suburban foothold near the Vantaa border, close to the churches of Tapanilan kirkko and Puistolan kirkko, with the centre a short ride down the line.
About Suurmetsä
What are the main landmarks in Suurmetsä?
Two parish churches mark the area. Tapanilan kirkko stands in the neighbouring Tapanila. Close by in Puistola rises the church of Puistolan kirkko, the two serving the eastern suburbs that ring Suurmetsä near the Vantaa boundary, while the wooded ground itself, the great forest that gives the subdistrict its name, runs between the houses.
Quiet streets fill the rest. The rail line links it back to Helsinki.
What is the history of Suurmetsä?
Suurmetsä began as forest land on the north-eastern fringe of Helsinki. Its name means great forest. As the capital grew outward along the eastern railway through the twentieth century, the wooded ground filled with houses and the subdistrict took shape among the suburbs of Tapanila, Puistola, and Suutarila near the Vantaa border.
Parish churches followed the settlers. Tapaninkylä rose alongside it.
Where is Suurmetsä?
Suurmetsä lies in north-eastern Helsinki, out toward the city's edge. Forest gives it its name. The subdistrict spreads among the eastern suburbs near the Vantaa boundary, bordering Tapanila, Puistola, and Suutarila, a low and wooded corner reached by the rail line that runs out of central Helsinki.
Tapaninkylä lies close by. The churches of the area mark its small centres.
Where Suurmetsä sits
Boundaries © geoBoundaries (CC BY) & Wikidata (CC0); water & neighbours: Natural Earth.