Famous places — Finland's most loved

Suomenlinna

Set along the approach to Helsinki, Suomenlinna is one of the world's great sea fortresses and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, its history bound to Sweden, Russia and Finland from the 1700s to today.

Look for: Seek out the King's Gate on Kustaanmiekka, the country's foremost Baroque portal and the fortress's parade entrance; the Great Courtyard on Susisaari also holds Augustin Ehrensvärd's tomb monument.

Uspenski Cathedral

Helsinki

Arriving in Helsinki from the sea, the Uspenski Cathedral rises on the Katajanokka cliff, dominating the skyline with its thirteen gilded domes. Completed in 1868, the red-brick church is the largest Orthodox cathedral in Western Europe.

Look for: Look up into the central dome, its ceiling painted as a starry sky. Along the east wall stands the two-tiered iconostasis running its full length - its frame holds 22 icons in the Italian-influenced St Petersburg manner.

Olavinlinna

Savonlinna

Rising from a rocky island at Kyrönsalmi in Lake Saimaa, Olavinlinna was the first fortress in Scandinavia built for firearms. Its construction began in 1475 and continued for three centuries — step inside and let the stone walls speak.

Look for: Notice the three round towers of the grey-stone main castle and the curtain wall linking them — the castle's oldest part — and to the east the Russian-era bastion front raised in the late 1700s.

Temppeliaukio Church

Helsinki

Temppeliaukio Church is quarried straight into the rock so that its round nave sits at street level. Step inside and let the bedrock walls and the dome's ring of light surround you.

Look for: Look up at the dome, lined inside with a thin copper band and carried on slanting radial reinforced-concrete beams — and notice the water that seeps in places from the bedrock.

Old Rauma

Old Rauma is one of Finland's six medieval-founded towns and one of the largest surviving wooden town areas in the Nordics — named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991, a maze whose roughly 250 plots and narrow lanes invite you to lose your way.

Look for: Look at the facades of the 19th-century wooden houses: the richly shaped neo-Renaissance weatherboards and mouldings speak of the era's ornament. By the square stands the baroque-classicist town hall.

Häme Castle

Hämeenlinna

Alongside Turku Castle, Häme Castle is our foremost medieval castle, standing at the narrows of Vanajavesi as the centre of Häme's military and administrative power. Its red-brick walls also hold the country's prison history.

Look for: Read the castle's layers: the grey-stone camp castle from the mid-13th century, the brick palace storey from the early 1400s, and the ring wall's cannon tower from the 1560s tell of centuries of building in the same masonry.

Turku Cathedral

Turku

Standing on Unikankare hill since 1300 and dedicated to Saint Henry and the Virgin Mary, this cathedral is the national shrine of Finland's civic and spiritual life. Step into the brick basilica with its west tower and linger.

Look for: Look up into the broad nave of the three-aisled hall, where star vaults arch overhead. Notice how the pillars shift from square in the western part to octagonal in the section built under Bishop Hemming.

Kerimäki Church

Savonlinna

Near the shore of Puruvesi, on Aittokangas hill, rises "the largest wooden church of Christendom" – a broad double-cruciform church whose high dome rests on a four-sided drum.

Look for: Step into the light-soaked room "built of pines": the pillars, two-tiered galleries and tie-beams are painted throughout to imitate marble in white, light grey and bluish veining.

Raseborg Castle

Raseborg Castle was the military and administrative heart of western Uusimaa from the 1370s to the 1550s, watching over shipping and trade in the Gulf of Finland. Its ruins rise on a high glaciated rock in a bend of the Raseborg river.

Look for: Pick out the two outer baileys and the great round tower added to the original stone castle during the 1400s; a ring wall follows the natural shape of the rocky island.