Rauma Things to Do Tips by Janni67 Top 5 Page for this destination

Old Rauma

Old Rauma is the widest wooden town in the Nordic countries. It's about 28 hectares in total and full of narrow streets. It has been inscribed in UNESCO's World Heritage List which includes the most remarkable cultural and natural sights in the world.

In Old Rauma you can find small boutiques, handicraft shops, galleries, cafés and restaurants, idyllic houses, gardens, an original market milieu, and many other tourist attractions. The strong maritime tradition is presented in buildings, museums, events, and in the atmosphere of the town.

Rauma museum in the old town hall

By the Market Place you can see one of the most beautiful buildings in Old Rauma: the Town Hall which was built in 1776. Today it serves as Rauma museum where you can for example explore Rauma's past as a seafaring town as well as see models of the beautiful laceworks.

The Rauma Museum collections contain about 100,000 catalogued artefacts and photographs. In addition the museum has archive material, books and other items. Material associated with lace are above all lace samples, lace patterns, and lace making pillows, lace caps, and other clothing and linen associated with the use of lace.
The archive material includes photographs, interviews, and old documents related to lace.

The great era of Finnish lace-making was the late 18th century and the early 19th century, when lace trimmed caps were in fashion. They were women's silk covered caps with lace trimmings. All women in the countryside as well as in towns wanted to possess an impressive lace trimmed cap.

The lace trimmed cap was a grown-up woman's headdress. The cap with its precious lace trimming was first worn to confirmation and after that to social functions and to church, for example. Many women owned several caps. Even though new caps and lace trimmings were no longer purchased as actively in the late 19th century, many women wore their caps to church all their lives.

Address: Kauppakatu 13

Phone: (02) 834 3532

The Church of the Holy Cross

The Church of the Holy Cross is a former monastery church of a franciscan friary, which was built of stone in the mid-1400's. From outside it resembles many other middle-age stone churches in Western Finland. The tower of the church was added in 1816, and the upper part of the tower has been reconstructed after the fire in 1968. The mural paintings date from 1510-1522. The church has a capacity of 800 people.

As I told in the intro, Rauma is well-known for its' lacemaking. A few of the votive tablets in the Church of the Holy Cross display early examples of Finnish lace fashion. While the high society fashion of Southern and Central Europe required wide and impressive lace, the local style here was more modest. Lace trimmings were attached to the collars and the cuffs of linen shirts worn underneath thick woollen clothes.

Address: Luostarinkatu 1

Other Contact: open every day in summer

Phone: (02) 837 751