rettig palace

In the spring (so, a long time ago - yikes) I visited this exhibition on the Rettig Palace for its 90th anniversary. The palace is where the Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova museum is located nowadays, but it used to be the home - "palace" - of the von Rettig family. I'd already been interested in learning more about the palace and the Rettigs, so this was perfect!

botanical

 I think I may not be properly ready to say bye bye to summer as I still have a whole lot of summer photos of flowers and such. I am excited about autumn and the spooky season, too, though!

evening star

 My hope and expectation when thinking about and taking these pictures was to look ethereal, elvish and Arwenesque in every way. But the reality is that I am more of an Aragorn - in the photos and in real life. I was cold, windswept and at times felt and looked like I had been striding in the wilderness for weeks. My visit to the seaside and the little forest area on the peninsula was definitely closer to a couple of hours than weeks, and even though I was majorly unprepared for the frigid autumn wind I did enjoy it. Because I will love and enjoy any time spent by the sea. (I will not and have not, however, been kidding myself that it is still no-tights weather or that it's appropriate to leave the house without gloves and other autumn essentials. I don't know who and where I think I am sometimes.)

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!

everything is yellow

 These autumn colours have been pretty amazing at the moment. If only they lasted even a tiny bit longer! I obviously had to match all the leaves and live a proper yellow moment.

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.

ruissalo-love

 You know how I'm continuously gushing about Ruissalo? Here's some more of that! It is just such a gorgeous little island and a 100% one of my favourite places in Turku.

saaronniemi and the sea

 This has been one of my favourite places this summer. And even more so now that it's autumn and the beach is more deserted. I am a bit sad because all the summer cafés have or are about to close down until next year (where can I get my weekly chips after swimming now?), but otherwise the beach and the sea are still where I try to go about once a week.

st catherine's

I feel like I only ever have pictures of cemeteries and old churches, but that's what I'm into and that's what you get! These as well as my previous post are from the St Catherine's Church in Turku and you best believe I'm well happy about living in a city with three surviving medieval churches!

a chapel in the midst

 We all know I love a good cemetery so finding out there was a church, a graveyard and a cemetery all in one place nearby obviously got me excited to go explore. (As well as to test out a new little tripod I got.) And it was a good one.

summer at home

Growing up we never went on a summer holiday in the sense I understood that word. I was on holiday from school, we would sometimes visit a different city in Finland, and that was it. Mostly I spent my summers at my grandparents' or at home, usually splitting the time between the two. I'd sometimes ask to go somewhere, to go abroad, especially when I heard about my friends' plans - who'd often go to the Canary Islands or somewhere else that sounded fun and more exciting than two nights in a Finnish town. But at the same time, I always loved my summers.

vintage honey(duke)

 I had lots of spring outfits, like this one, planned out but it seems like we're now fully in summer and most of these spring outfits I had in my head won't work in the heat. It's been +30°C and I was not prepared for that! I've already started swimming in the sea, eating ice cream outside and sleeping with the window open, so if I have to stop doing these things and start wearing leggings or other warm things again, I'm going to be bummed.

second hand flowers and spring

 Since there's virtually no spring flowers yet, I'm wearing tiny flowers of my own - in the form of this jumper. Which I would've really liked anyway, but obviously like more knowing that it was a second hand shop find for a couple of Euros. I love second hand shops. 

butterflies in a field

 I don't know who and where I thought I was, believing that wearing a mere t-shirt would be enough. Granted it was quite warm, but I still could only bear to take my coat off for two seconds. I just wanted to wear this skirt and as soon as this t-shirt (and some other Adidas bits) arrived, I felt optimistic and deceived by the warmth of the sun I could feel through the window and changed from a more weather-appropriate outfit to this.

little grey riding hood

 Coat&Dress - 2nd hand

Hooded scarf - Self-made

Cardigan - Made by my grandma

Shoes - H&M

Gloves - Accessorize

forum marinum in turku

Another Turku attraction/museum I've liked is the maritime museum, Forum Marinum. I mostly heard about it because my uncle has worked on ships and has also donated some things to the museum. Other than that my opinions on the place are not at all biased (haha)!

turku castle

A Valentine's tip: Take your partner to a castle and treat them like the queen they are. JK, just trying to make this post relevant to the day. Although, if someone wanted to take you on a trip to a castle, saying no would be just rude. (Granted they are someone you like and not a random creep.)