Turku, Finland

Turku, located on the southwestern coast of Finland, is the country’s oldest city and its original capital. It’s a scenic setting at the mouth of the Aura Riover in the Coast and Archipelago region. The historic centre of Turku is on the east bank, near Porthaninpuisto. Just across the Aura Bridge is a ‘newer’ historic centre and the main commercial area. There’s some lovely running in Turku, with several central routes combining parks and paths lining the Aura River, and trail running in some of the oak forest areas near the city. One feature unique to Turku is the Paavo trails — routes that have been marked with blue runner marks on the streets and round markings on trees to facilitate walking/running in the city and connect to recreation paths.

The best places to run in Turku are accessible from the centre. Mix and match our ‘runseeing’ tour, paths on the Aura River (lower & upper sections), and our Turku Parks route. Further upriver is a scenic path through Virnamäenpuisto (park). In the eastern part of Turku, there are some nice trails in the Varissuo neighborhood. Ruissalo Island is one large conservation area, and offers wonderful running on a network of forest trails and open paths such as the Villa Promenade. Just south of the city, run some of the quiet roads on Hirvensalo Island.

Notes: The city is quite bilingual, so you’ll find signs in Finnish and Swedish. Note that Turku winters can be snowy. The city’s latitude means extremes in seasonal day length — many paths are lit at night in winter.