Turku or Åbo, Finland's Oldest City

On Friday, October 14th Earl and I left Helsinki and traveled by train to Turku (or in Swedish - Åbo). He attended a conference for all of the Fulbright grantees at the University of Turku. If you look at the southern area of the map of Finland you will see that Helsinki is just about in the center of the tip. Going westward, but still on the southern coast you will see Turku. It has claims to being Finland's oldest city and its first capital. It is much closer to Stockholm than we are in Helsinki.

Train station in Helsinki.

We stayed on campus at the Villa Hortus. It was a very comfortable place to stay. We had a kitchen and bathroom with a heated floor. I really could use one of those in my long term life. If you look at the map using the link on campus you can see where we stayed at number T42. All of the meetings were held in the main building, T1.

Turku Orthodox Church or the church of Empress Alexandra Martyr, the main church of the Turku orthodox parish is located on the northeast corner of Turku Market Square in Turku. The church was built in the 19th century while the Russians controlled Finland.

I was enchanted with all of the wreaths for sale.

For the last month this heather-like plant has been for sale everywhere. At the college where the professor is teaching all of the potted flowers have been replaced with potted heather. Here is just an example at one restaurant above. We passed a park recently where all of the flowers have been replaced by purple heather. It was such a lovely contrast to the dark green of the grass.

The professor in front of statue in the square in Helsinki.