The ancient city of Nystad (Uusikaupunki)

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One thousand years ago, Nystad (“new city”) was new. Originally a viking outpost, it has grown into a lovely city with a population of 18,000 people and home of Valmet Automotive, which has an auto museum worthy to visit. Featuring vintage Saab, Porsche, and the unique Fiskar Karma, the only car with a perfect X design, which engineers previously considered impossible.

The most popular place in the spring, summer, and autumn is the Pakahuone, which means “Guest Harbor” in Finnish. Here you will find a coffee shop with home-made pastries, sandwiches, and salad. The rustic dining room features paintings by Finnish artists and the outdoor patio borders the harbor, where boats from all over the world come to rest and enjoy the Guest Harbor. Next door is a restaurant that also serves alcoholic beverages.

For the most adventurous, the local yacht club offers a short trip to the island restaurant. Dinners are not cheap, but well worth the experience. It’s a memory you will cherish.

A short trip by car to Kalanti brings you to a rocky “mountain” which is the highest point in Varsinais-Suomi. From here you can see all the way to the ocean and the big granite cliffs as far away as Vehmaa. Also in the vicinity are the ruins of an ancient viking home - all that’s left is the stone foundation, but for history buffs, it’s worth stopping to see.

Within driving distance is the magnificient Parkanvuori, a nice climb up a unique granite rock formation with a beautiful open air cave underneath that leads to an enclosed cave that’s not deep, but certainly worth a short crawl to experience it.

If you aren’t keen on the public beach, Kalanti offers a lake with good swimming and where there’s few visitors. The only amenities are an outhouse and a fire pit. For those who need the comforts of home, a small cottage is available to rent.

In Leippainen, there is a beautiful lakeside park, complete with a boardwalk, swimming area, covered gazebo with a double grill (firewood is supplied, but if you want more, there’s an axe for chopping), changing rooms, and an outhouse. Trails through the woods lead to a cliff where you can enjoy some privacy and it’s a great place to enjoy a picnic lunch.

Uusikapunki (Uki) has a cultural museum, two historic churches, and an abundance of old wooden houses. No need to drive to Rauma - the houses in Uki are excellent examples of historic Finnish dwellings. In addition, you will find a collection of wooden windmills on the “Myllymäki” (Windmill Hill), which is the best presentation in Finland.

For English-speaking visitors, who might find it challenging to find their way around, I offer free guide services on a limited basis. You can also find me on Facebook. I’ve lived in Nystad for almost 20 years and I’d be happy to show you around.

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Hello @Marti_Masters ,

Thanks for sharing your first post and welcome to Connect! Do you have any pictures to show us? :slightly_smiling_face:

I wanted to let you know that I removed the Finnish tag from your post since you wrote in English and the tag should reflect the language you used to write it. In the following article you can read more about it: How do I find posts in my preferred language?

To know more about the forum and its topics, I suggest Your guide to Connect, where you will find helpful information.

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The tag is automatically set by your software. I live in Finland, so the region on my PC is set to Finland my keyboard is Finnish.

I suggest if people want photos that they use Google. There’s plenty of nice pictures of all the places I’ve mentioned in my post.
Since no one read posts written in Finnish except Finns and maybe a few foreigners who have studied Finnish (there are 2 places you can learn Finnish: Finland and Finlandia University in Michigan), there’s no point writing this type of post in Finnish. The audience I intend to benefit are people who may want to visit Finland. Obviously, there is nothing in my post that would interest Finns because they are already familiar with the cities in their country as well as the major points of interest in the countryside.

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Hello @Marti_Masters ,

Thanks for your answer. When you compose the message you can select the language tag if you use Finnish, while there should be no tag when writing in English. You can write in any language you know, since on any Connect page there is the helpful Translate button. If you take a look around in the forum, you will see that many Local Guides have conversations using their own languages, no matter which one.

Adding photos here in your Connect posts would definitely improve the interest and engagement of the content you share. If you want, you can also include the Google Maps links to the places you mentioned, such as Uusikaupunki, Pärkänvuori or Kalanti, so they will be easier to find and see for other members.

Additionally, when answering a post or comment, you can also tag the person, by adding the symbol @ before the username like I did with you, to make sure a notification is sent. For more information you can take a look at these 14 helpful tips for using Connect. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Thanks for the information.