Porvoo (Borgå)

 

History

The Porvoo Castle was built on the hill and the town was named Borgå ("castle river") in Swedish.
The Porvoo parish and the church originated in the 13th century. The church was first built of wood, later of stone. It was founded high on the hill to dominate the town.

Six towns were established in Finland during the Middle Ages. Some of them grew to be towns without any official order having been issued. This was the case with Porvoo, which got the town rights after Turku in the 14th century. The story tells that in 1346 Maunu Eerikinpoika (Magnus Eriksson), then the King of Sweden, visited Porvoo and granted the town rights there and then.

A picture of The Historical Museum

The historical museum

Today

In today's Porvoo, the past and the present merge in perfect harmony. The strata from different epochs can be discerned in the structure of the town. Porvoo is a dynamic town centre fostering culture and traditions which offers its inhabitants humane and pleasant surroundings.

The town of Porvoo has about 43 000 inhabitants and an area of 654 km2. The town is a thriving centre for the economic region of the eastern part of the province of Uusimaa. Porvoo is a bilingual town with about 35% of the inhabitants speaking Swedish as their mother tongue. More than half of the citizens of Porvoo gain their livelihood from trade and services, compared to a third who work in the industrial sector.

The traditions and structure of industry and commercial life are based on three vibrant industrial branches in Porvoo - the graphics, electrotechnical and petrochemical industries.

Porvoo originally grew up as a trade centre and it continues to be an attractive focal point as a centre of business and commerce. The volume of retail trade makes Porvoo one of the bigger municipal centres. People from the wide surrounding area come to the town to do their shopping.

Porvoo is an attractive tourist destination and the importance of tourism is considerable both for the retail trade and the service sector. The Old Town provides one of its most colourful sights and tourist attractions. Old Porvoo is famous for its narrow lanes and brick-coloured riverside warehouses. In the Empire-style part of the town, the low wooden houses belong to the classical town plan where the streets form squares. It is here that the home of Finland's greatest poet, Johan Ludvig Runeberg, provides one of Porvoo's most popular tourist attractions.

Porvoo marina

Cheerful guest marina in downtown Porvoo, near all services.

 The marina offers a wide range of services:

If you are sailing with your own boat, it´s worth while pointing your bow towards the archipelago. Small boat marinas Tirmo, Hamari and Sandholmsudden offer refreshments and the company of other sailing enthusiasts. Summer markets are the place to buy fresh fish. The market on Sandholmsudden on the Pellinki island sell not only fish products, but also hand-made merchandise and vegetables and berries grown in the clean Finnish nature.

 

 

Read more about facilities here