Kokkola: the lighthouse on Tankar Island

On the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia in Finland, Kokkola holds a picturesque neighborhood of eighteenth-century wooden houses among the best preserved in all of Finland.

Regular ferries connect the city to Tankar island during the summer.

The picturesque district of Neristan, with colorful wooden houses from the eighteenth century, remains one of the best-preserved wooden historic centers throughout all of Finland.

A few minutes from the port, the island of Tankar, easily accessible by ferry, preserves a historic lighthouse and a fishermen's church among the oldest on the entire coast.

Proceeding to the center, one visits the K.H. Renlund Museum, which chronicles the maritime and commercial history of Kokkola through the past centuries.

As evening approaches, local restaurants serve smoked fish according to the culinary tradition of the Finnish Bothnian coast.

Kokkola prospered considerably in the nineteenth century thanks to the tar trade, an essential product for waterproofing wooden sailing ships, exported throughout Europe from its important city port.

The island of Tankar, inhabited seasonally by local fishermen since the seventeenth century, houses a lighthouse still perfectly functioning among the oldest on the entire Bothnian Gulf coast of Finland.