This weekend our family decided to rent a car and head east towards the Russian border to visit the town of Savonlinna. It’s known for its medieval castle, Olavinlinna (linna means castle in Finnish), perched on a rocky island in the Kyrönsalmi Strait that connects two larger lakes.
Olavinlinna, literally St. Olaf’s Castle, was begun in 1475 by a Danish knight, Erik Tott. The Swedes needed to build up their fortifications on their eastern border so the location was chosen for its defense position against the Novgorod Republic (basically a part of Russia).
Over time the castle changed hands many times as a result of changing borders, attacks and counterattacks. At different times in history it belonged to Sweden, Russia and now Finland. It was a military base until 1847 and for a short time after that it was a prison. Once the castle was abandoned it quickly gained notoriety as a tourist attraction.
The castle holds no furniture and most rooms are empty halls because two fires damaged most of the castle in the late 1800’s. Today the castle can actually be rented for wedding, baptisms or other events. A small chapel in the castle can seat about 40 people but the large banquet hall (below) and other great halls can hold many more people.
Tea and Talia both thought the castle was very cool. Tea said the castle was a lot like Merida’s castle in Disney’s Brave. In fact, Brave takes place in medieval Scotland so the architecture is much like Olavinlinna. The girls were also very interested in the private toilet in the castle. Of course it was just a hole cut in the floor that led straight down to the water so all waste would go into the lake. They thought this was quite funny and asked several questions about how all of this worked back in the 1500’s. In the picture below they are checking out the royal potty!
Throughout the tour we ended up climbing about 100 stairs and were up at the top of the castle, about 27 meters high. It allowed for a beautiful view of the water surrounding the castle and we were able to walk along the highest parts of the walls. While we had made our way slowly to the top of the castle we descended down one very long spiral staircase. Adam had recently learned that all stairs in castles spiral the same way as a defense strategy. As right handed swordsmen walked down the stairs they could freely swing their swords and defend their home or military base. As right handed swordsman attempted to climb and attack their sword movement was restricted by the way the stairs spiral. Adam would be in luck as an attacker since he is a lefty!
Olavalinna is home to an annual summer opera festival and I can imagine this is a beautiful event. A wide variety of operas are sung throughout the month of July and people come from quite far to watch and listen.
This quick weekend trip was well worth it. This was the first castle we've visited in Finland. We will surely be at more castles throughout Europe in the next few months, but this was a great start!