Porvoo is the second oldest town in Finland (after Turku infact). It was established as a town and allowed to trade from 1346. It has a pretty river which allowed it to do this. Along the river where little storage huts, which are so often photographed, and remind me a bit of the famous gazebo's in Ware, near where I live. So we had a tour guide take us all around whats left of the original town (aptly named the old town) which was really quaint. Little wooden houses, narrow cobbled streets etc. Also a very nice little cathedral which you can see in the background of the picture above.
Of course, it wasnt a complete break from learning. At lunch Jarkko had our table mouthing the difference sounds for ä and a. For ä you open your mouth wide, for a you keep it more closed. Needless to say we had some dodgy looks in the restaurant, but hey ho.
And then we headed off to a museum. By this point I wasnt feeling very well, so it was a bit tiresome for me perhaps. It was the house of Johan Runerberg, who wrote the Finnish national anthem (although he wrote it in Swedish). But the house was kept identical to how it was when it was donated to the state, back in the 1800's if I remember correctly. It was nice to look around. We then went to see the sculptures of his son, Walter Runeberg. I didnt like these so much.
After the Runeberg stuff, we had an hour of free time where we wondered around the shops. Not the typical tourist tack though, most shops were selling items of Finnish-made handcrafts. They were very nice, and I bought a few things. But the most popular shop of our group was the chocolate shop (of course having nothing to do with the free samples).
Anyway, I would recommend it for a day-trip for anyone in Helsinki. Its easy to get to, and a very charming little town, giving you an idea of what Finland used to be like.
3 comments:
Aren't the Finnish and Swedish national anthems the same just with different words?That might be Finland and Estonia actually,I can't remember.Pretty cool fact though :)
Hmm, dunno about that. The guide said it took a long time for the Finnish national anthem to be translated into Finnish (think she said it was in German French and English before Finnish, so maybe its just that they used to sing it it Swedish for quite a while.
Its so weird how much Swedish there is here actually. Everything is written in Finnish and then in Swedish - even the names; Helsinki/Helsingfords, Pasila/Bole. Its so strange. And everyone is taught Swedish in school, so my teachers speak Swedish too. You never hear anyone speaking it though. Only in Porvoo yesterday, but apparently a third of the population still speak it as a mother tongue there, but only 6% of the population over all.
Just to let you know, you were right, the Finnish national anthem is indeed the same melody as the Estonian national Anthem. With the Estonian one have slightly different lyrics (and being in Estonian I guess). We had a lecture on 'Finland for Foreigners', which I hoped would be about culture and customs, but instead was about the history of immigration in Finland, and he mentioned it then.
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