Every design for Kangasala

Up on Kirkkoharju, the largest and highest of Kangasala's ridges, the view opens over the lakes below. Kangasala lies just east of Tampere, between the waters of Roine, Längelmävesi and Vesijärvi, and its landscape is a pattern of long pine ridges and open water. Even the name says so: kangas is dry, pine-covered ridge land.

What sets it apart is that people have been coming here for the view for centuries. Visitors once travelled to the Kuohu Spring for its supposedly healing waters. King Gustav III was so taken by the Syrjänkorkee ridge that he compared it to the mountain of Christ's temptation, and after Tsar Alexander I admired it too it became Keisarinharju, the Emperor's Ridge. Topelius later put the lakes into a poem that became a well-known song, and manors such as Liuksiala, where Queen Karin Månsdotter lived as a widow, add to the story.

Coming home to Kangasala means the moment the road crests a ridge and the lakes appear below.