Finland, part 5: Ostrobothnia (Old Rauma)

Don and I rented a little Citroen and drove the 87 kilometers from Turku to Rauma, which turned out to be a great choice. Not only does the bus and train combo take seven hours to get there and cost (roundtrip) as much as renting a car for two days, we also got to pull over and see stuff along the way.


Because we had the car, we got to drive around and see stuff off the beaten path, and I got a chance to shoot some B-roll footage of various Finnish scenes, landscapes, and in this case, a lighthouse. I don't know how much we'll use but it's certainly worth having.



One reason I wanted to go to Rauma is that there is another marine museum there, but the main attraction is the seaside 'Vanha Rauma' (Old Rauma), one of six medieval towns that still exists in Finland. Vanha Rauma contains the largest collection of old wooden houses in all of the Nordic countries. Many of the buildings date back to the 1700's, and some of the architecture is actually from the 1500's. The winding streets are largely cobbled and quite narrow, and although designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, still functions as a town with roughly 37,000 inhabitants. Unlike North America, the old shops are not full of tourist crap and souvenirs as one might expect (Finns are actually pretty inept at tourism, which is nice), but are rather hardware stores, apothecaries, cafes, clothing stores, and other services one might to expect in any small town.

In short, it looks like a movie set after the cast and crew have left.

After we had walked into Vanha Rauma about half a block, Don and I realized we should be shooting, so we went back to the hotel and he got on his 'young Tom' costume and I grabbed the camera and tripod, and we got some shots of young Tom Sukanen on his way somewhere, perhaps to work, through these winding beautiful streets. The slightly drizzly weather was just perfect, too; it looked like we'd hired a water truck to water down the streets and make everything wet.

As was the case with the whole trip, things just seemed to go our way.



The buildings are all beautiful and very unique; I took a lot of pictures of the architectural design. Here's a small sample:

old door lock mechanism

A typical Vanha Rauma street.

This a beautiful medieval-looking canal that runs through Vanha Rauma. We didn't use it for any shots, but it's pretty cool!

Town hall.

We shot all over Vanha Rauma and, again unlike North America, no one asked us what we were doing, where our permit was, or whether we had insurance. They just stopped what they were doing, watched in mild curiosity, and waved politely as we packed up and moved on.

Here is a sketch I did of a street in Vanha Rauma (without a ruler even) while Don and I had a coffee in one of the old cafes:

And here is a quick watercolor sketch of the cellar restaurant where we had amazing salmon soup for supper:



The final leg of the trip is back to Helsinki for a tour of the Ateneum, one of the top art museums in Finland.

Until next time... Sisu!