Rauma-Trip

In the last weeks I did among other things two trips - to Rauma and to Turku! 

First let's tell something about Rauma: at the day I travelled to Rauma it was rainy and quite cold, but my group members and I were determined and motivated. We took the bus to the city, it takes about 1,5 hours to go to Rauma. First (due to the weather and the early time of the day) we stayed some time in a nice little café to indulge ourselves some sweet tooth :-D You can see two examples below:

After we had our trip to chocolate-land, we visited the two museums. The first one, the Marela house, was owned by Abraham Marelin, who was a tradesman and a shipowner in earlier years. Here are some information from the official homepage:

'The large granary is from the year 1830. The carriage shed next to it was built in the mid 18 hundreds. From the 1830’s is also the other roadside building, which originally had storage rooms, as well as the row of outbuildings, which consists of the stable, cowshed and woodshed. During a later renovation a bakery and workers’ quarters were added.'

'The present exterior of the main building is from the end of the 19^th century. It was then that the house got its splendid Neo Renaissance-siding. During the same time period renovations were made in other parts of the town as well, so that approximately two thirds of the houses got a new, fashionable look. Wealth was brought by the flourishing sailing ship trade era of the 1890’s.'
 

'During that time Marela was owned by one of the wealthiest tradesmen and shipowners of the town, Mr. Gabriel Granlund. The decorative tile stoves, the doors, the paintings on the ceilings, and the panelwork reveal the wealth and the museum furnishing the lifestyle of the old shipowner family. Wealthy townspeople, such as the Marela residents, were those who regularly supported lace makers with limited income by buying laces for their linens. Marela has operated as a museum since the beginning of the 1980’s.'

To wrap it up: you can see all the furniture of the old way of living, like very tiny children beds, an old toilet, a fancy dining room and much more. Furthermore there was a little part with old hand-weapons and basic war commodities. The whole interior was very fancy and posh, you could imagine that wealthy people must have lived there. Just have a look at some pictures:

 

The next museum was the Rauma museum, which was founded in 1891 on the initiative of private citizens. The museum is concentrated on local history and the culture the city represents.The three main topics which are on exhibition are the architectural environment, shipping and lace (the Rauma Museum did even have its own lace makers). The collections of the Rauma Museum consist of objects, photographs and archival material of over 100 000 units. Here is a picture (you can find the origional one on the museum's homepage): 

On the second floor there was an exhibition with photographs of some UNESCO World Heritages - all of them showed places in Germany. Good feeling to see some of the most beautiful cities of its own homecountry :-D One other German guy who was in our group and I were like 'Oh, I know this, it's near my hometown!', 'I have been there just this spring!' and 'Yeah, I have a friend in this city!' - yes, it was a very interesting museum, especially for us Germans ;-D

 

Those museums were both in the old part of the city, also called 'Old Rauma' - of course this part of the city was on our list! We informed ourselves before the trip and found out that this part of the city is the 'largest unified historical wooden town in the Nordic countries'. In opposite to most other 'older city parts'  nowadays, where tourist trips replaced the 'real' city life, in Rauma the old part today is still the heart of the town, where living, social life and business go hand in hand all year round. 

After that we walked to the harbour to see the old lookout  tower, called KIIKARTORNI. First again some official information about the tower: 'The original Kiikartorni was located in the harbour, close to the present maritime school. It was completed in 1892, at the peak of the Rauma sailing ship era. It offered information services to the harbour, the town, and those at sea.The tower was still giving weather reports in the 1940’s. It was torn down in 1956 as unnecessary. The current lookout tower at the shore of the Syväraumanlahti bay is an exact copy of the old tower in the harbour. The 18,6 metre high tower was built in 1992. The tower offers a beautiful view into the archipelago as well as a chance to observe the lively traffic of the boat harbour.' Here is a picture of the tower:

 Unfortunately...it was CLOSED that day :-(

But we made some nice little photosessions behind the tower on a lot of very big rocks. It was even not that easy, because of the rain which made the surface of the rocks very slippery. Nobody felt into the water or broke some bones - just to let you know! Here are two pictures of the group (we had to separate it, because there was not enough space for the whole group):

Yes, that was our Rauma-trip, it was rainy, but nice though! I would say it is the typically Finnish city someone expects coming to Finland! For sure, it is worth a visit!

Moika! :-D