turku day, pt. two

 If you've not seen the first few museums I visited on Turku day, you can find them here. Out of those ones I had been to a couple of the places before, but all of these three in this post I was visiting for the first time. And, honestly, all of these are so good they would be worth revisiting!

The first is technically not a museum, but the Turku Orthodox Church or the Church of the Holy Martyr Empress Alexandra. I've always wanted to go but it's not always open. (Certain times during the summer, I think, and of course during service.) It's a fairly small church, but very decorative, beautiful and atmospheric. Very Orthodox. I especially loved the amazing ceiling.I feel like this is one of those places that are in the middle of the city and that I often think and wonder about, but that you don't necessarily get to see that often - unless you practise the faith. So it did feel a bit lucky to get in. I'm always visiting churches as they have such gorgeous architecture and details and I love the tranquility and feeling in them, but I think this was only the second Orthodox church I've ever been to.

The Pharmacy Museum and Qwensel House was another one of those museums I had had my eye on yet hadn't actually gotten around to seeing. And I LOVED this one. When I walked into the main pharmacy room, I just felt like this is my thing. The Qwensel House part of the museum (they are technically two different museums, I think, but they're in the same building/complex and you need to walk through both even if you were just wanting to visit one) is a 18th century bourgeois house and the whole house is actually the oldest wooden house in Turku. It has a lot of pretty little things to showcase how the family would've lived in the house back in the day. (Definitely a contrast to the simpler way of life in Luostarinmäki and the working class that you can see in the first post!) But the Pharmacy Museum is where it's at. There's the office which is stunning with all the pretty bottles, labels and curiosities, as well as laboratories and a material and a herb room. And everything is so interesting! For example, you can read what each herb was used to treat which is so cool. Even though the museum isn't that big, I definitely want to go back to explore and learn more. The museum café is meant to be really good as well but I didn't test it out since I had just eaten (at Luostarinmäki), so that's another reason for going back!

Another hospital/pharmacy related museum that I actually visited on another day but decided to include in this Turku day post since I meant to visit it but didn't have the time. The Turku Lazaret Museum is right on my way to uni and I never even knew it was there. The building is really cute (and small) and used to be the gatekeeper's house. The museum is only open once every month, which is probably why I hadn't heard of it, but tells a really interesting story of the first hospital in Finland (and the second one in Sweden since it was opened during the time Finland was still a part of Sweden and the people didn't want to travel all the way there to get medical help). I really enjoyed it and the guide on my visit was really lovely, but I ended up missing out on hearing on one of the rooms as with some sort of irony I got a migraine and had to cut my visit short. But the museum was lovely.

I kind of wish Turku day would come around sooner than next year as I would love to visit more museums (or revisit these ones) for free! It's not as if the entrance fees are that expensive - especially for students - but I always appreciate getting any and everything for a discount or for free. Safe to say I was a happy little citizen on this day and thoroughly enjoyed spending the entire day exploring all these different kinds of museums!