After spending about two weeks in 2023 travelling along the northern coast of Spain, we trained to Madrid for a few days before beginning our complex trip home. This involved getting ourselves to Helsinki to catch a Finnair flight to Singapore. Our flight towards home was still another few days away so we decided we would spend some time getting to know a couple of cities in Finland rather than waiting for our flight in Helsinki. The first of these was the coastal city of Turku. We trained down to Turku and walked a couple of blocks from the station to the Solo Sokos Hotel Turun Seurahuone. Despite its long complex name, this hotel provided us with a very pleasant one-night stay.
We had two opportunities to explore Turku. The map to the right illustrates our afternoon walk around the centre of the city.
Turku is considered to be the oldest city in Finland. It was also considered the most important city in Finland until Helsinki was designated the capital in 1812. Finland was once part of the Swedish empire but after the Finnish War of the early 19th century, it became a grand duchy of the Russian Empire. A statue of Alexander II of Russia still stands proudly in the square in front of the Helsinki Cathedral. Turku’s history goes way back to the stone age and it has been an important port on the southern coastline of Finland for millennia.
On the map above right can be seen the city’s Market Square with the city’s name ‘Turku’ marking the spot. It hosts outdoor markets on weekdays and is surrounded by cafes, shopping centres etc. At the back of the square is the Turku Orthodox Church (below left) dedicated to the ‘Holy Martyr Empress Alexandra’ who was the wife of the Roman Emperor Diocletian (284-305 CE). The image on the right below is the indoors marketplace over the road from the central square.
From the Marketplace Square, we continued on down Eerikinkatu (St) where we could now get a glimpse of the spire of the Turku Cathedral. It is the only medieval Basilica in Finland being the central church of the Lutheran archdiocese of Turku. It is considered a national treasure of Finnish architectural history. It can be seen on the map above and we reached it by crossing the bridge over the Aura River.
The Cathedral was originally built out of wood and was dedicated in 1300. It was expanded over the years by using stone. It was badly damaged by a fire in Turku in 1827 and was rebuilt in the shape we see today.
There were two items of interest for me outside the Cathedral. The first was a statue of the Protestant Reformer Mikael Agricola (1510-1557) which was unveiled in 1952. He was the Bishop of Turku and translated the bible into Finnish and is considered one of the fathers of the Finnish Literary language. The other item looked more like a road marker, informing the reader that the famous Nidaros Cathedral was only 1200 kilometres away in Trondheim, Norway. We had visited Trondheim the previous year and were lucky enough to visit this Cathedral, the endpoint of pilgrimage treks from all over Europe to visit the grave of King Olav II, the patron saint of Norway.
The map to the left above shows the rest of our afternoon walk around Turku after we moved on from Cathedral Square. Our plan was to walk along the Aura River until we got back to a bridge that would take us across the river and back towards our hotel. The image above right is of one of the first buildings we passed. It was a little difficult to identify its function, particularly due to the large sign on the roof that pronounced what we understood to be its philosophical ideology… “Liberty or Death”. After looking through the doors we realised it was a cocktail bar whose patrons no doubt demanded their freedom to drink cocktails or presumably, if cocktails weren’t available, drown themselves in the conveniently located nearby river.
A little further along the Aura River we came across the the ‘Aboa Vetus &; Ars Nova Art Museum’. Its façade was dominated by a sculpture of a large elephant, carved out of a large piece of granite. It was commissioned to celebrate Turku’s Capital of Culture award.
There was a significant hill off to the left of us above the river. We could see there was a significant white building on the top so we decided we should investigate. As a result we discovered the Vartiovuori Observatory (left above) that had been built above Turku giving it clear views of the night skies as well as the city below. It had been built in 1819 by the Royal Academy of Turku. Unfortunately it wasn’t a successful observatory and it became defunct by 1836.
From the observatory we walked back down the hill to continue our walk along the river. It was at this point that we noticed a group of sculptures (above right) that we could see on the opposite side of the river. I mentioned earlier that the Finnish War (1808-09) between the Kingdom of Sweden and the Russian Empire which resulted in Finland becoming an autonomous Duchy of Russia. The two individuals in this sculptural group are Tsar I of Russia and Karl Johan, Crown Prince of Sweden who were discussing European power issues in Turku in 1812. This sculpture was unveiled in 2012 to mark the 200th anniversary of the meeting. Apparently this monument is quite popular with the locals who when the weather turns frosty down by the river, provide the royal negotiators with beanies.
Referring back to the second map of Turku above, it indicates the position of the Turku City Hall that has a grand position on the bank of the Aura River. It was originally built as a large restaurant back in 1811 and amazingly survived the Great Fire of Turku in 1827. It was redesigned as the city hall between 1879-83.
Further on from the City Hall, we encountered a suitable bridge across the river that we thought would expedite our route back to our hotel. Our return was slowed down as we noticed a coffee van further along on the other bank of the river. The coffee was great and was a precursor to our going out for dinner to a Georgian Restaurant that night. It was called ‘Rioni’ and it was the best food we had eaten on the whole of our trip to Europe in the March of 2023.
FOGTRAVEL 