Finnish castles and manors

Helsinki, 2 degrees

As I'm spring cleaning our apartment, and need to let the floors dry since I just washed them, I thought it would be a great idea to sit down and write some lines for you. Although one can not really say that spring has started in Helsinki, we seem to have hit a period of greylike days with drizzle. Oh well, I guess this period is needed to melt down the tons of snow we have on the Helsinkian streets.

At work, spring stands for the period when new exciting tourism products are being planned and designed. I have had the privilege to make acquaintance with some of them. A week ago or so I had the chance to get to know some places outside Helsinki, in Eastern Uusimaa, the Eastern parts of the Finnish region Helsinki finds itself in. I visited Loviisa, Porvoo and Haikko. The adventurous day was organized by Porvoo Tours, led by the wonderful Birgitta Palmqvist who I first met last summer when we were on morning TV together.

Source: Netcar

The day started by getting to know the Bonga castle, the inspiring gallery of the professor and artist Riitta Nelimarkka, in Loviisa. If you're interested you can see a video about it.


Source: Bonga castle

I found myself confused after seeing the castle. The castle itself was beautiful, nobody can deny that. I even liked the colorful artwork of the artist having her gallery in it. I don't necessarly think they matched each other that well though.

And there was a lot of dried flowers in the house which I am personally afraid of. I have always thought dried flowers inside a house as a bad sign of something. Almost like an omen.

She had also put up some taxidermy around the house, another thing that scares me. It reminded me of the mounted baby elefant we had in my junior high school that I always was a afraid was watching me during our biology classes back in those days. Funny little detail.

Our second stop during the day was the beautiful manor of Rutum, built back in the 18th century. The manor is used for groups for weddings, meetings and other kind of events.

Source: Rutum manor

Once we arrived at the manor, we were welcomed by the couple who ownes the manor. The welcoming happened in an out of ordinary way. The lady of the house played a small drama show for us where she actually was playing the historical role of the first lady of the house. It was fun to watch and listen to the story. Afterwards she returned, dressed in a more modern way, and we got to hear the full story of the stunning manor. I have always associated France with different kinds of manors, but I was happy to see that we have a lot of manor even here in Finland, we just don't know about them enough.

I think the different colored rooms in the house are so beautiful that they deserve to be shown here in my blog. Which is your favorite?

The red room
Source: Rutum manor

The green room
Source: Rutum manor

The blue room
Source: Rutum manor

One of my absolute favorites was the master bedroom with its handpainted wallpaper. How about that?

What's your opinion?

@elisabeth.rundlof