Where to Stay in Lohja, Uusimaa

Lohja is known as a town of Uusimaa built on its medieval church and its limestone, in the lake country of southern Finland. The greatest of its sights is the Pyhän Laurin kirkko, the medieval Church of St. Lawrence whose painted vaults draw visitors to the old centre. Stone runs under the town.

The Tytyrin elämyskaivos takes travellers down into a working limestone mine, while the Lohjan museo keeps the wider story of this corner of Uusimaa.

The Pyhän Laurin kirkko is the landmark above all others in Lohja, the medieval Church of St. Lawrence whose vaults carry some of the finest church paintings in Uusimaa. Beneath the town, the Tytyrin elämyskaivos opens a working limestone mine to visitors. Stone and faith shaped the place.

The Lohjan museo keeps the town's heritage, the cemetery chapel of the Metsolan siunauskappeli, the old Luoman talo and the chapel of the Lohjan vapaaseurakunta add to it, and together they mark Lohja as an old parish of southern Finland.

Lohja's history rests on its medieval church. The parish grew up around the Pyhän Laurin kirkko, the Church of St. Lawrence raised in stone in the Middle Ages, its painted vaults a record of the faith of an old parish in southern Finland. The church came first.

A farming and fishing community gathered in the lake country of Uusimaa around it, the heart of a district that would carry the name of Lohja for centuries. Limestone then gave the town a second life. The pale stone of the ridges was quarried and burned for lime, and the workings deep underground, now opened to visitors as the Tytyrin elämyskaivos, drew industry and labour to Lohja.

The wider story of the town and its parish is kept in the Lohjan museo, while older buildings such as the Luoman talo and the cemetery chapel of the Metsolan siunauskappeli still stand from earlier days, layers that mark Lohja as both an old church town and a place of stone in Uusimaa.

Lohja lies in the lake country of western Uusimaa, in southern Finland. The town centre gathers on a ridge above the water, the Pyhän Laurin kirkko set high over the old core, while lakes, bays and limestone ridges spread out across the wide municipality. Stone lies close beneath the soil here.

The pale rock that feeds the Tytyrin elämyskaivos runs under the ground, and woods, water and farmland fill the rest of this corner of southern Finland around Lohja.

Lohja has a cool inland climate, its seasons softened a little by the lakes that ring the town in southern Finland. Winters are cold and snowy, the lakes of the district freezing over from midwinter until the slow spring thaw across the lake country of Uusimaa. Summers are mild and green.

The long northern daylight warms the water and the ridges around Lohja through the short growing season, the months when the lakeside cottages of this corner of Uusimaa fill before the cold returns.

Lohja sits inland in western Uusimaa, and the car or bus is the usual way in. The main road west from the capital region runs close to the town, with buses reaching the old centre below the Pyhän Laurin kirkko in southern Finland. There is no passenger railway in the centre.

Travellers from farther off come through the larger cities of Uusimaa before the last stretch of road into the lake country, where Lohja gathers above the water.