Turku

[khiemtran]

Turku is the joint 2011 European Capital of Culture...




It has the famous Turku cathedral...



And a scenic river, infested by oversized waterbirds.



Ridden by music-loving robots.



Actually, it was also filled with young people on their way to the nearby RuisRock music festival, so bright blue hair, goth outfits and kilts were also very much in evidence. I'm not sure whether this is the typical Turku attire. Unfortunately, I didn't get many photos of the city proper as I was too busy running around trying to find clothes, power adaptors and the like. It does look like a very nice university city though, which is easy to walk around and with plenty of things to do on a sunny day.

Also, on the subject of the cathedral, the Finnish word for 'church' is kirkko and "in church" is kirkossa. The verb "to be" has the root form "olaa". With just this information, you can almost intuit the following Finnish proverb - Saunassa ollaan kuin kirkossa. "In the sauna, be as in the church." i.e. Behave the same way in both places. I'm not sure how the Finns feel about nudity in the cathedral though.

Anyway, back to the pictures. By this time, I've bought some spiffy new clothes, including a T-shirt on special commemorating Finland's famous win in the 2011 World Ice Hockey Championship. I had to hope it wasn't on special because Finland did not, in fact, turn out to win the 2011 World Ice Hockey Championship, but, as it turned out, they did, so that was okay.

I had a bit of time left, so I decided to take a look at Turku castle. It's quite easy to get there. Either you take the No. 1 bus from the Market Square ("Kauppatori") in the direction of the harbour, or you simply follow the river for a kilometre or so.

The riverbank was lined with ships and barges of all types.





[Dinner time, to be continued...]

Comments

[carl-allery.livejournal.com]

Great pictures - especially the tall ships in the harbour. The giant daisy is ... rather large, but since I always find daisies cheerful, it's a nice picture. :)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, the tall ships were gorgeous. I think they were part of the maritime museum, which you can see in the background behind the Giant Daisy. That would have been worth a look too, if I'd had more time. Lots of interesting machinery visible through the windows.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

And I thought Glasgow went a bit weird when it hosted the European city of culture... Cathedral looks nice...

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, unfortunately I didn't get a chance to look inside. I was warned by some Finnish friends that it didn't have "coloured windows or anything", but I was assured that it was quite old "for Finland".