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Minotel Centro |
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Rooms From: EUR 160
Yliopistonkatu 12a, Turku, 20100
Welcome to the Minotel Centro in Turku
The Minotel Centro is a modern boutique hotel in the heart of Turku. It is just a short walk from the market place, shops and museums.
The Minotel Centro is a modern boutique hotel in the heart of Turku, just a short walk from the market place, shops and museums. Our peaceful hotel faces the inner courtyard, so a good night's sleep is guaranteed in all of our rooms. In Minotel Centro, special attention is given to cleanliness, personal service and wide-ranging breakfast buffet. In the hotel, you will also find a lobby bar, a meeting room, a workstation with Internet facilities and two saunas.
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TURKU was once the national capital but lost its status in 1812 and most of its buildings in a ferocious fire in 1827. These days it's a small and highly sociable city, bristling with history and culture and with a sparkling nightlife, thanks to the boom years under Swedish rule and the students from its two universities. Many of its Swedish-speaking contingent still consider Åbo - the Swedish name for Turku - the real capital and Helsinki just an upstart.
To get to grips with Turku and its pivotal place in Finnish history, cut through the centre to the river. This tree-framed space was, before the great fire of 1827, the bustling heart of the community, and is overlooked by Turku's cathedral or Tuomiokirkko (9am-7pm daily except during services; free guided tours in English available), which was erected in the thirteenth century and is still the centre of the Finnish Church. Despite repeated fires, a number of features survive, notably the deliriously ornate seventeenth-century tomb of Torsten Stålhandske, commander of the Finnish cavalry during the Thirty Years' War. On top of a small hill near the cathedral, you'll see the wooden dome of the Engel Observatory , which currently houses the Turku Art Museum (Tues-Sat 10am-4pm, Thurs closes 7pm, Sun 11am-6pm; ?5-8 according to the exhibition) while its usual home, a granite Art Nouveau structure close to the train station, is being renovated. The museum contains one of the better collections of Finnish art, with works by all the great names of the country's golden age plus a commendable stock of moderns. Steps away on the bank of the Aurajoki river is Turku's newest and most splendid museum, the combined Aboa Vetus and Ars Nova (May-Aug daily 11am-7pm, Sept-April Thurs-Sun 11am-7pm, July-Aug daily guided tours in English at 2.30pm; ?6 or ?9 including tour). Digging the foundations of the modern art gallery revealed a warren of medieval lanes which are now on view beneath the glass floor of the building. The gallery itself comprises 350 striking works plus temporary exhibitions, and there's a great café too.
Just north of the cathedral is the sleek low form of the Sibelius Museum (Tues-Sun 11am-4pm, Wed 6-8pm; ?3), which - although Sibelius had no direct connection with Turku - displays family photo albums and original manuscripts, the great man's hat, walking stick and even his final half-smoked cigar, alongside exhibits covering the musical history of the country. There is also a concert hall where you can listen to recorded requests. South of here, the engrossing Luostarinmäki Handicrafts Museum on Vartiovuorenkatu (mid-April to mid-Sept 10am-6pm; rest of the year Tues-Sun 10am-3pm; ?2.50; guided tours in English, with demonstrations, from June to Aug) is one of the best and most authentic open-air museums in Finland, and as true a record of old Turku as exists. The wooden houses here were built by local working people in traditional style and they became a museum as descendants of the original owners died and the town bought them up.
A short walk away, on the southern bank of the river Itäinen Rantakatu 38, is another worthwhile indoor collection: the Wäinö Aaltonen Museum (Tues-Sun 11am-7pm; ?4, more for special exhibitions), devoted to the best-known modern Finnish sculptor, who grew up close to Turku and studied at the local art school. Aaltonen dominated his field throughout the 1920s and 1930s, and his influence is still felt today; his imaginative and sensitive work turns up in every major Finnish town. Crossing back over Aurajoki and down Linnankatu and then towards the mouth of the river will bring you to Turku Castle (mid-April to mid-Sept daily 10am-6pm; rest of the year Tues-Sun 10am-3pm; ?3.75). The featureless exterior conceals a maze of cobbled courtyards, corridors and staircases, with a bewildering array of intriguing finds and displays. The castle probably went up around 1280; the seat of government for centuries, its gradual expansion accounts for the patchwork architecture.
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