Helsinki
Finnish students live well, so take advantage of this summer residence: a clean, busy, environmentally sound spot with neat rooms, a sauna and draft sketches by Tove Jansson on the walls. Its 326 modern en-suite rooms come with kitchenettes and Finnish textiles. Dorms sleep up to three, continental breakfast costs just €6.50 and HI members get a 10% discount.
A self-service laundrette and bike storage are available, and carbon offsets and recycling make Both an environmentally-friendly choice.
2.6 MILES
Suomenlinna, the ‘fortress of Finland’, straddles a cluster of car-free islands connected by bridges. This Unesco World Heritage site was originally built…
0.75 MILES
Occupying a palatial 1887 neo-Renaissance building, Finland’s premier art gallery offers a crash course in the nation’s art. It houses Finnish paintings…
0.96 MILES
An unmissable stop for Finnish design aficionados, Helsinki's Design Museum has a permanent collection that looks at the roots of Finnish design in the…
0.48 MILES
Built in National Romantic art nouveau style and opened in 1916, Finland’s premier historical museum looks a bit like a Gothic church with its heavy…
1.66 MILES
Situated 5.5km northwest of the city centre, this excellent island-set museum has a collection of 87 historic wooden buildings transferred here from…
0.5 MILES
One in a series of elegant, contemporary buildings in this part of town, curvaceous, metallic Kiasma, designed by Steven Holl and finished in 1998, is a…
29.99 MILES
One of Finland's most enticing old quarters, this tangle of cobbled alleys and wooden warehouses is entrancing. Once a vibrant port and market, Porvoo now…
0.5 MILES
Set beneath the iconic 1936 Lasipalatsi building, art museum Amos Rex opened in 2018. Sweeping staircases take you below ground to the exhibition halls…
0.22 MILES
Hewn into solid stone, the Temppeliaukion church, designed by Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen in 1969, feels close to a Finnish ideal of spirituality in nature…
0.26 MILES
The 1938-completed Tennispalatsi (Tennis Palace) cultural and recreation centre was intended for the 1940 Summer Olympics, which were subsequently…
0.27 MILES
Inside the Tennispalatsi, Helsinki's contemporary-art museum oversees 9000 works, including 3500 citywide public artworks. The overwhelming majority of…
0.34 MILES
Housed in a Jugendstil-style building dating back to 1928, Kunsthalle Helsinki hosts up to seven major, mostly contemporary exhibitions every year. Recent…
0.35 MILES
The city’s natural history museum is known for its controversial weathervane of a sperm impregnating an ovum. Modern exhibitions such as Story of the…
0.35 MILES
Famous Finns buried at this sprawling 1829-established cemetery include architect Alvar Aalto and military leader and statesman Carl Gustav Emil…
0.43 MILES
Finland's imposing parliament building was designed by Finnish architect Johan Sigfrid Sirén and inaugurated in 1931. Its pared-back neoclassicism…
0.47 MILES
Built in 2012 by Helsinki architectural firm K2S, this exquisite, ultracontemporary curvilinear chapel is constructed from wood (wax-treated spruce…