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Hi,

Quick question for Finish sceners. I am going to spend my summer holiday in Finland (few days). What cities places shall I visit? Helsinki, Tampere, Oulu, Jyvaskyla? What about other places worth seeing? What would you suggest?

Thank you!

You should definitely visit Ivalo and Utsjoki!

I live in Oulu, it indeed is beautiful, though not too much to see. I'd say go for Hämeenlinna there's a nice castle there, Suomenlinna is also a definite must-see (yes linna means castle). The old harbor in Rauma is also beautiful. When you are in Oulu, you can always visit Joulupukki (Santa Claus) in Rovaniemi which is pretty close but it would be the wrong season :). Nevertheless, you can experience the beauty of a ~22 hour sunlight. As I aforementioned there are some castles here that you should definitely visit. I haven't been to most of them, but Häme and Raseborg were interesting enough. Petäjävesi is an amazing sight to see as well (it's an old church / cathedral). Finally, from the pre-historic era there are two interesting places in Finland: The Bronze Age burial site in Sammallahdenmäki, it's further north from here in Lappi and Susiluola, a possible Paleolithic settlement / cave. For the rest, here is a list of pre-historic places in Finland you can visit.

Oh also, when you're here don't forget to go to the sauna!
Hope you'll enjoy your stay!

Oh, very finally, for the rest of the interesting stuff happened in / stuff from Finland: see Sweden.

You really should visit Turku, as that's where the Dekadence HQ is located :)

Depends on what your holiday goal is and if you have a car or not. If you're going to be here for just a few days (~3) i suggest staying in Helsinki (the only 'city' in Finland.. the rest are more or less towns) and doing some daytrips to Porvoo (~45km east of Helsinki), to the Suomenlinna fortress island (15min by ferry from downtown Helsinki) etc.. Hämeenlinna is also close by (an hour on the train).

If you're here longer, and have access to a car, or don't mind the exorbitant train prices, i suggest a trip from Helsinki to Lapland and back. A train'll get you as far north as Rovaniemi or Kolari, but you'd need a car for the really remote places.

Start cities with ambient occlusion!

Helsinki or lapland. Depends if you like to spend your time in a village or countryside. Saimaa lake area is quite nice too but you better have a car then.

Vantaa or Kerava.

Screw Finland, visit Norway instead!

So you're telling me....Finland is REAL??

Rovaniemi is cool, though itself a very small town and not much going on there. There is an interesting museum where they show a movie about Aurora Borealis.

i'd recommend lappland. if you go to tampere, see pispala. it's a nice and beautiful part of tampere, a workers' district of wooden houses build without any general planning. the result is quite a unique piece cityscape, unseen anywhere else, with a great view to two lakes. just next to it is the longest graffiti wall of scandinavia.

in general the finnish cities aren't that interesting. check out countryside and especially lappland. go trekking in the wilderness! and check the world championships of air guitar during oulu musicvideofestival!

It all depends of course on what you're interested in, but in general the bigger Finnish cities are pretty much like every other city of their size. Except with more Finns.

There's some really beautiful places (nature and historic sites) in the "Archipelago Sea". If you have a car, you can get around there pretty well.

Also, the Åland islands are very much worth seeing if you're into hiking/cycling/slow sightseeing and have some time to spare. It's possible to start from Turku and proceed by island hopping to Helsinki (or vice versa). A lot of Finns would probably tell you that the islands aren't genuinely a part of Finland (they speak Swedish, have their own government etc), but personally I like them very much :p The nature is different from mainland Finland, it's really quiet and there's a lot of history there.

In case that doesn't capture your imagination, I'd join the choir and recommend either Lapland or the combination of Helsinki+Porvoo, or then the actual countryside.

Taking into account the fact that the best bar of the whole universe is located in Porvoo and it's also the psychedelic capital of Finland, I'd suggest to get your arse here.

make sure to end up in a cabin that has a lakeside sauna at least one night though. else you haven't really been to finland at all.

Finland?
Is that another large city in Sweden? I know Norway is the capital.

Tzaeru i beg to differ. According to the internet the best bar in the world is in Helsinki.

Now i can't say for sure how true that is, but A21 is a bloody awesome coctail lounge nevertheless.

If you'll only be here for few days and not interested in Lapland, it might be best to skip the northern parts. It's fun here in Oulu, as we have for example the REAL best bar in the world, but travelling so far may be a pain. Unless you can afford a plane, of course. Rovaniemi sucks ass; there's simply nothing in there but a bunch of tourists, cheesy Santa stuff and ONE decent cafe/bar. Avoid at all costs. Of course, rural Lapland is something completely different..

Otherwise, what Uncle-X and Decipher said. Hämeenlinna (my real home town) and Porvoo are indeed nice if you want something smaller and more scenic/historical. Turku is also great during summertime, although you won't hear many finns admitting it. :)

coctail lounge?.. ...Sounds weird. Never been to one, 'xept the one in Bingen. Was.. wee-eird.. Got this strange feeling around me, as if .. As if.. Dunno. As if it was bad to drink just shitload of vodka to get drunk.

Didn't like it.

Yeah, I'd like to add that Hämeenlinna is indeed a good choice if you want to see how "most of Finland" lives. One of the few cities/towns in Finland worth living in, actually..

tzaeru that's because you're an annoying little brat :-)

Wow! This is how finnish coders get inspiration to code these beautiful landscapes, I guess :)