turku day, pt. one

 About a month ago (16/09) it was Turku day. There were lots of events all around the city, all through the day. But it was my favourite because most of the museums had free entry! So I took the whole day and visited six. And had to divide these into two posts since I took so many pictures.

I'd already been to Turku Castle and initially just wanted to make a quick stop there to see the exhibition on the Finnish president, Mauno Koivisto's medals and other decoration. And I really enjoyed that. But then it turned out that whole new sections of the castle were open this time that I obviously had to check out. Last time it was mainly the medieval parts of the castle that were on display and this time the renaissance ones were as well, and the temporary exhibitions had changed as well. So it was good to see new sections of the castle and its history and it's wild how much there is to see with each visit. Honestly, Turku Castle is probably one of my top recommendations to see in the city.

 Another place I had already been to was the Luostarinmäki Handicrafts Museum  (Cloister Hill) which is also amazing. It's an open air museum area which means that the last time I visited with my mum in the winter not all of the buildings were open and although it was such a lovely experience with a Christmas atmosphere, there was more to see now in the summer/autumn season. And the last time I only took photos on film and they all turned out crappy, so I wanted to get new ones!

The buildings are from the 18th to early 19th century and it's one of the only areas that survived the Great Fire of Turku (in 1827). People were actually still living in them in the 1940s but as the area was turned into a museum they were restored to look as they would have around the time of that fire. It's like a little village of it's own with a post office, shop (both that you can still use!) and other things like that and with each craftsperson having their own house/workshop. There's more wealthy houses that actually have multiple rooms and multiple personal belongings and then the poorer ones that are basically just one room with the bare essentials. Mostly I love the details in all of the workshops. Some of them have reenactors actually running a workshop where they either explain what they're doing or you might be able to participate. Probably the coolest is getting to do cards at the wordpress that you can then mail from the post office if you want to. It's just really cute.

 Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova (Old Turku & New Art if you ain't fluent in Latin) was one of the museums I had been meaning to visit ever since I moved to Turku, so Turku day was the perfect opporunity to finally go. It was probably the busiest out of all the places I went to, so a little less enjoyable because of that, but still definitely worth a visit! The museum basically has three sections under one roof; the historical museum, the modern art museum and the temporary exhibition - which is a cool way to bring different areas together and to have something for everyone. The temporary exhibition on at the moment was not my thing, but I really enjoyed the rest. I found the Old Turku part to be such a unique way of displaying and storytelling the history of the city. They actually found the archaeological structures and artefacts dating back to medieval times on the site while doing construction and that's how the museum became both Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova instead of just the latter. And the excavations are on display and you can walk amongst them almost as if you were still at a archaeological site. It's really interesting, and they've found a whole lot of interesting things that you can see and explore. And I was actually quite surprised and impressed by the modern art that they had! Some Picasso, Warhol, Hockney, Gallen-Kallela and a lot more. In addition to the whole building being pretty interesting.

You know I love a good museum, so you also know that this was a very good day for me. And like I said, I visited six - hope you're ready to have me go on and on about more museums next week!