Where to Stay in Turku, Varsinais-Suomi

Turku is known as the oldest city in Finland and the country's first capital. The city grew on both banks of the Aurajoki in Varsinais-Suomi as the medieval seat of church and crown, the cradle of Finnish learning and culture before that role passed east, and it carries that long story in its cathedral, its castle, and its riverside museums. Its skyline is medieval at heart.

Turun tuomiokirkko rises over the river as the mother church of Finland, while Turun linna guards the mouth of the Aurajoki, and a strong food and arts scene has earned the city its standing as Finland's window on the West.

Turun tuomiokirkko is the great landmark of the city. The medieval cathedral rises over the Aurajoki as the mother church of Finland, while downstream Turun linna, the stone castle at the river mouth, has guarded Turku since the Middle Ages. Museums fill the riverside.

Forum Marinum keeps the maritime story with the full-rigged ship Suomen Joutsen at its quay, the open-air Luostarinmäen museokortteli preserves a whole quarter of old wooden houses, and Aboa Vetus Ars Nova joins medieval cellars to contemporary art beside the water. Art and music have their homes too. The Turun taidemuseo holds the regional collection on its granite hill, and the Sibelius-museo gathers the instruments and archive of Finnish music in the oldest city of south-western Finland.

Turku began as a medieval trading town at the mouth of the Aurajoki, chartered in 1229 as the seat of church and crown in the eastern half of the Swedish realm. The town grew around two great works of stone raised in the same age, the cathedral on the river bank and the castle at the water's edge, which together made it the religious and administrative heart of Finland for centuries and the gateway through which learning, trade, and authority reached the country from the West. Turun tuomiokirkko crowned the town.

The cathedral became the mother church of the whole country, and Turun linna at the river mouth held the power of the realm over the south-western coast. For generations Turku was the largest and first city of Finland. It carried the first university and the first printing press, and it shaped the language and learning that later defined the nation, even as fire and war repeatedly tested the wooden town along the Aurajoki.

Then the centre of power moved. After the realm changed hands in the early nineteenth century the capital was shifted east, and a great fire soon after destroyed much of the old town, so the city was rebuilt on a new plan even as it lost its first rank. Yet the river kept its old quarters alive.

Luostarinmäen museokortteli survived the fire as a whole district of wooden houses, and along the banks the museums of Forum Marinum and Aboa Vetus Ars Nova now hold the long memory of Finland's oldest city. So the first capital became a city of museums and learning on the Aurajoki.

Turku lies in south-western Finland, where the Aurajoki reaches the coast at the inner edge of the Archipelago Sea. The river runs through the middle of the city in Varsinais-Suomi, dividing it into two banks linked by bridges and lined with quays, while beyond the harbour the water breaks into the thousands of islands and skerries of the archipelago. The land around is low and coastal.

Turun linna stands where the Aurajoki meets the sea, and roads and ferry routes fan out from the city across the region and over the water toward Sweden.

Turku has a cool coastal climate softened by the Archipelago Sea. Winters are cold and often grey, with frost and snow along the Aurajoki and ice forming among the sheltered inner islands through the heart of the cold season in south-western Finland. Summers are mild and long-lit.

The warm months draw life to the riverside terraces and the open water of the archipelago, milder than the Finnish interior thanks to the sea, while spring and autumn turn between the two. The sea keeps the city's edges from the harshest cold.

Turku is one of the main gateways of south-western Finland. The city has its own airport and a railway station with fast trains from Helsinki, and major roads run in across Varsinais-Suomi from the capital and the rest of the country. Ferries sail from the harbour.

From the terminal near Turun linna, large car ferries cross the Archipelago Sea to the Åland Islands and on to Sweden, making Turku Finland's western sea gate, while local buses and river boats link the centre along the Aurajoki.