Hämeenlinna

My brother was going home on Monday evening last week, so we still had the entire day to go somewhere. I looked at my map and saw Hämeenlinna, a town on the way to Tampere, as a good place to visit. I had wanted to go there back in the summer but never had the chance and now the weather was not so great, but we decided to brave it anyway.

Arrival at the train station

Hämeenlinna is about an hour away by train direct from Helsinki so it was easy to get to. Once there we walked into the town centre, which wasn't quite as historic as I expected and looked just like any other town in Finland. After lunch we picked up a map and headed along the shore of the lake toward Hämeenlinna Castle.

Hämeenlinna Castle

The castle itself was quite impressive on the outside, although inside it was completely bare of the usual historic furnishings and items you might expect to find. After an hour of wandering around and exploring the 3 floors, we headed outside to the museums.

Inside the prison

The prison museum was most interesting. Situated in an outlying part of the castle, it was a fully functioning prison since before the civil war and only finally closed in the 1990s. I've never been to an actual prison before so it was almost like being on a film set. It's possible to see inside many of the cells, with possessions left as they were when inhabited, as well as the prisoners' sauna and hospital.

The town centre church

Afterwards we had a look around the artillery museum, which has a large collection of increasingly phallic cannons, before heading back to the station to catch the train to Helsinki, where I saw my brother off to the airport.