Every design for Lahti

At Lahden urheilukeskus, the city's sports centre, the Hiihtomuseo keeps the story of skiing, the sport so many local families grew up with. It is a fitting place to begin in Lahti, a city whose coat of arms shows a train wheel wrapped in flames, a nod to the railway that turned a small village on the old road between Hämeenlinna and Viipuri into a town.

People who come from Lahti often talk about the place in modest terms, and that seems to suit it: a travel feature in The Guardian praised its little cafés and its quiet, down-to-earth people. There is the bay at the southern end of Vesijärvi, where the name itself comes from, since lahti simply means bay. There is the Salpausselkä ridge, now a UNESCO Global Geopark run from the city, and the long environmental work that won Lahti the title of European Green Capital.

If you learned to ski on these slopes or walked to school along the ridge, the map shows the same ground you have known since childhood.