Where to Stay in Vihti, Uusimaa

Vihti is known for its old church village and its lakes, a green municipality in the Uusimaa countryside west of the capital region. Around the historic Vihdin kirkonkylä gather the medieval Vihdin kirkko and the ruins of the older church of Saint Bridget, the heart of the parish. The church village is the draw.

Nummela, the newer town, holds most of the people and the shops, while manor houses such as Olkkalan kartano and the rock painting at Salmijärven kalliomaalaus scatter the wider farmland of this part of southern Finland.

Vihdin kirkko is the chief monument of Vihti, the medieval stone church at the heart of the old Vihdin kirkonkylä. Beside the village stand the ruins of an older church, the Pyhän Birgitan kirkon rauniot dedicated to Saint Bridget. Manors mark the wider land.

Olkkalan kartano, Hovin kartano and Kourlan kartano are among the estate houses of the parish, while the prehistoric Salmijärven kalliomaalaus rock painting, the Vihdin museo and the modern Nummelan seurakuntakeskuksen kirkko of Nummela round out the sights of this part of Uusimaa.

Vihti grew as a farming parish in the lake country of Uusimaa, its roots reaching back to the medieval church. The rock painting at Salmijärven kalliomaalaus shows that people lived along these shores in prehistoric times, and the ruined church of Saint Bridget, the Pyhän Birgitan kirkon rauniot, marks the early Christian centre before the present Vihdin kirkko rose in the Vihdin kirkonkylä. The land was farmed by manors.

Estates such as Olkkalan kartano, Hovin kartano and Kourlan kartano held much of the parish ground through the long agricultural centuries of southern Finland. Vihti was constituted as a municipality in 1867, and the coming of the railway shifted its centre of gravity. The new town of Nummela grew up around the line, drawing shops and people away from the old church village, and the modern Nummelan seurakuntakeskuksen kirkko later served the growing town.

The medieval Vihdin kirkko kept its place in the kirkonkylä, the Vihdin museo gathered the parish past, and Vihti settled into its modern role as a lake-and-farm municipality of Uusimaa on the western edge of the capital region.

Vihti lies in the lake-and-farm country of western Uusimaa, in southern Finland, just beyond the capital region. Lakes, fields and forest fill the broad municipality, the old Vihdin kirkonkylä set by the water around Vihdin kirkko while the town of Nummela spreads along the railway and the main road. The land is gently rolling.

Manor estates such as Olkkalan kartano stand among the fields, and the wider parish of Vihti runs over cultivated ground, lakeshore and woodland typical of the Uusimaa interior west of the coast.

Vihti has the cool, four-season climate of the southern Finland interior, milder than the deep north yet set back from the open sea. Winters bring frost and snow, the lakes of the municipality freezing and the fields around Nummela lying white from early in the season to the spring thaw. Summers are warm and long-lit.

The long northern daylight ripens the crops of the Uusimaa farmland and warms the lakes through the short growing season, before autumn colours the woods around Vihti and the cold returns to the land.

Vihti is reached by road from the capital region, lying a short way west on the main route through Uusimaa. Nummela sits on this road and carries most of the traffic, and visitors come by car or bus. The old church village lies off the highway.

Medieval Vihdin kirkko and the Vihdin kirkonkylä stand back among the lakes and fields, and travellers from farther afield reach southern Finland through the capital before driving the last stretch out to Vihti.