You know what this trip has been missing? Medieval castles. Just kidding. But seriously, one of Turku’s main attractions is the Turku Castle. Cat and Alex weren’t too keen on it, so I headed off solo to explore it this morning.
The castle, which originally dates back to the late 13th century, has been built up and added to over the medieval and renaissance periods. It was partially destroyed by bombings during World War II, so some sections have been reconstructed and restored since, but a good part of it is actually still original from the era. I joined a guided tour that was actually pretty good, and got a good run-through on Finnish history of the era. We saw dungeons where prisoners were kept, great banquet halls, an original Catholic church from before Finland’s reformation, statues and costumes and jewellery of the time periods.
(Side note: We’d been seeing everything with the word “linna” in it in street names all over Finland. Turns out, Linna means “castle” in Finnish. Which would make sense. And Linnea, it also explains why I keep thinking everything is named after you.)
After the castle tour, I met Catherine and Alex back in Market Square, and we jumped on the local bus back to our inn. We stopped into the supermarket across the street for some picnic fare, and then walked up to what Google Maps showed was supposed to be a nice park by the riverbank. Well, Google Maps lied; what we found when we got there was actually a parking lot, some industrial-looking buildings, and a few farmer’s fields behind lots of overgrown brush. Alex tried to find a way around to see if there was a park elsewhere, but ultimately we gave up and started walking back towards the inn instead, stopping off at a patch of grass by the side of the main road for some picnic fare. Oh well. At least the sun was out and we had a nice walk through a pretty residential section of Turku.
When the wasps and hornets got too annoying (and there are a LOT of them here at this time of year), we made our way back towards the inn, stopping off at a little park on the way back that had a wading pool to swim and dip our toes in and just laze the rest of the afternoon away. In the hot weather, it was actually really nice.
Our bus back to Helsinki was due to leave at 5, so we grabbed our bags and got a taxi back to the bus stop. Turku is beautiful and I’m glad I made it there. I’m quite sad that this trip is very nearly over. But it’s been a lot of fun.