Every design for Porvoo

An Old Town of well-preserved eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings, gathered around a fifteenth-century cathedral, is what draws most people to Porvoo, one of Finland's six medieval towns, alongside Turku, Ulvila, Rauma, Naantali and Vyborg.

The town lies on the south coast, on the Gulf of Finland in eastern Uusimaa, where the river Porvoonjoki runs through it to the sea. Its Swedish name, Borgå, joins borg, castle, and å, river, after a medieval fortress near the riverbank, and the river was a trade route long before the town existed. The Old Town and the river valley together are counted among Finland's national landscapes. Porvoo is bilingual, and it is the seat of the Swedish-speaking diocese of the Lutheran church, which is why Domkapitlet i Borgå and Piispantalo stand in its streets.

Itäinen Pitkäkatu runs through that old centre, past J. L. Runebergin koti and the old buildings that make Porvoo instantly recognisable. Walking it is the simplest way to understand why so many people want to keep this town close.