Rauma Finland
10
Cruises availables
At departure or passage at this port
Ponant (8 Cruises)
Silversea Cruises (2 Cruises)
Frequently Asked Questions
At the commercial port, one of the oldest harbours in the country. A ten-minute shuttle links the quays to the centre and drops you a few minutes' walk from the old quarter.
The largest wooden old town in the Nordic countries, on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1991: around six hundred wooden buildings with façades painted ochre, almond green and straw yellow, on a street plan inherited from the Middle Ages.
No, and that is what sets it apart. Several hundred residents still live there, and the houses hold homes, cafés and workshops. Heritage status did not turn the place into a stage set.
A legacy of the days when the local merchant fleet sailed the Baltic and far beyond: each house carries its own name, often that of a shipowner or a captain.
The former sanctuary of a fifteenth-century Franciscan friary, on the edge of the old quarter. Its vaults keep medieval paintings and its tower is a landmark in the town's low skyline.
Bobbin lace that appeared here in the eighteenth century through maritime links with Europe. Lacemakers keep the technique alive in the workshops of the old quarter, and the windows display collars, doilies and trimmings of astonishing fineness.
In the morning: they sometimes close in the early afternoon. Every summer a full week celebrates the craft, culminating in the famous Black Lace Night, when the town stays up into the small hours.
The Marela and Kirsti house museums, the preserved homes of a shipowner and of a sailor's family, showing both bourgeois and working life of the past. The maritime museum, in the former navigation school, recalls that captains from here commanded one of Finland's great sailing fleets in the nineteenth century.
Two to three hours for the lanes, the church and a pause at the market. The whole centre is walkable once the shuttle has arrived.
Head out to the Bronze Age burial cairns of Sammallahdenmäki, the region's second UNESCO site, about twenty kilometres away. Otherwise the market square is enough: growers, fishmongers, seasonal berries and a cardamom bun facing the town hall.
