Turku: the ancient capital on the Aura river

Finland's capital until 1812, Turku preserves the country's most important medieval castle and cathedral along the banks of the Aura river.

The ancient Finnish capital on the banks of the Aura river is easily explored on foot.

Turku Castle, a medieval fortress founded in the thirteenth century, remains one of Finland's most important historical monuments, with halls housing period reconstructions.

A short walk away, Turku Cathedral, the mother church of Lutheran Finland, preserves tombs of important historical figures within its naves.

Continuing along the river, you walk the banks of the Aura, where restaurant boats moored permanently serve meals on the water during the season.

Toward evening, the open-air museum of Luostarinmäki, the only Turku neighborhood to survive the great fire of 1827, preserves eighteenth-century wooden craft houses.

The great fire of Turku in 1827 destroyed nearly the entire city, sparing only the Luostarinmäki district, today an open-air museum and the only direct testimony to what the city looked like before the disaster.

The Finnish capital moved to Helsinki in 1812 at the will of the Russian tsar, who wanted an administrative seat closer to St. Petersburg after Finland's annexation to the Russian Empire.