Turku & Rauma trip

In the Easter break I went to the coastal city of Turku and the 14th century wooden town Rauma.Here are the details and the pics.

I started at 6 am from Hameenlinna and reached Turku at half past 8 by the express bus.Turku is about 170 Kms from Hameenlinna. I had a hot cup of the coffee in the coffee shop at bus station as I was feeling sleepy.

Rauma is 90 Kms from Turku and went to Rauma by car from Turku, started at around 9am taking the E8 highway which is almost straight to Rauma.

Here is the picture from highway taken from inside of car.


I had a break midway in one the Shell petrol station,filled the tank with fuel and had my favorite coke there.I reached Rauma in around one and half hour.

Rauma or Old Rauma, founded in 1442 AD is the third oldest town in Finland.Rauma combines historic buildings, culture, modern industries and services, an expanding port and wide-ranging higher education.Old Rauma is one of four UNESCO world heritage sites in Finland.



This unique part of the town is an unparalleled example of an old Nordic town of wood and it still is the largest uniform wooden town area in the Northern Countries. The area of Old Rauma is about 30 hectars and the number of existings buildings, both dwellings and shops, is about 600. There are about 750 inhabitants. The oldest inhabited buildings date back to the 17th century. The structure of the town has up to these days had a medieval character - narrow and winding roads and alleys as well as irregular lots.

I found ducks swimming in a canal just beside the parking slot.



Parking is free in Old Rauma and there are 6 sights in Old Rauma.
1.Old Town Hall
2.Marela Museum
3.Kirsti Museum
4.Rauma Art Museum
5.Church of the Holy Cross
6.Ruins of the church of The Holy Trinity

I started with Old Town Hall, situated in center of the city,this old building looks magnificent.The city center was bustling with activity in the bright sunny morning.The Town Hall was constructed in 1776 and now is the museum of the lace models and wonder maritime articles.


This is the map of Rauma engraved on stone just in front of Town Hall.




The next was the Church of the Holy Cross.



The Church of the Holy Cross is a former monastery church of a franciscan friary, which was built in the mid-1400's. There are medieval wall and vault paintings in the choir of the two-aisle stone church. The church nowadays serves as a town- and rural parish church of Rauma.

I had a special fascination for this as my schooling was done in a convent of Franciscan fathers.Here is statute of St. Francis of Assisi(Italy).


All this sight seeing made me damn hungry and I was surprised to find McDonalds in this Old Rauma, I went there and had my chicken meal and wooooo I got Ice cream free with my meal :).But the place was crowded with most of the people being tourist and I could hear all kinds of languages, Polish, English, Swedish and ofcourse Finnish.

After this I went to the Marela Museum.The museum representing the home of a ship-owning family from the turn of the last century with also changing exhibitions.There were lot of things and I clicked lot of snaps and all with flash off.












The last sight was the Ruins of the church of the Holy Trinity.





Here are few pics of Rauma Town.






I took the round of the Old Rauma and then started my journey back to Turku at around 4 pm and reached Turku at about 5.30 PM.It was hot that day in Rauma and Turku.




On reacching Turku I went to Robert's coffee bar and had a glass of English tea.
In Turku I saws the Cathedral, walked along side the river the bridge was looking beautiful with Easter decorations of Daffodils.





Towards the end of the day I was heavily tired.The same evening there was the soccer match of Finland vs Czech Republic.I saw the match on big screen in a lovely sports bar.There were few other young people enjoying their drink and watching the match.I missed the first half but watched the whole of second half.The second half was exciting and there wasn't a single minute without action.Though Finland lost 4-3 but I think they played quite well.All the time I was rooting for Finland.

This picture I took while sitting inside the bar of a funny looking color car.



I left the bar and came to bus station again which was quite near and took the 9 pm last bus to Hameenlinna. It was an excellent trip to Turku and Rauma and though I was dead tired but it was worth it.