Old Town Raahe

Old Town Raahe is one of the best-preserved 19th-century wooden towns in Finland. Not a museum area but a living town district, Old Town Raahe tells the tale of the construction of a town and life in it from centuries ago to the modern day.

Get on a guided theme walking tours organised by the Raahe Guides Association. Enjoy the guides’ stories about the people of yore, visits by kings and emperors, the life of sea captains and merchants who had seen the world, daily life, habits and people in the past and today.
You can also take a walk on your own and listen stories via Glopas audio guide while touring. Glopas can be downloaded for iOS and Android devices from app stores.

Just a stone’s throw away from the heart of the old town, from the pier of Packhouse Museum, the former sailors’ house, you can start a cruise in the award-winning Raahe archipelago. Sit down on the pier, breathe in the fresh sea air, listen to the lilt of the happy town.

Built on a former Lapp hut site, the town was originally quite modest. According to a town plan map drawn in 1659, the oldest picture of Raahe, the then 10-year-old town only comprised less than a dozen blocks, many of them nothing more than small strips. There were only two longitudinal streets and three cross streets. The town was surrounded by a customs wall with two customs points: the eastern one outside the crossing of today’s Brahenkatu and Reiponkatu streets, and the southern one at the end of Pitkäkatu (now Kauppakatu) street, approximately at the location of today’s Koulukatu street. Even back then, the town had a busy port, located at the packhouse, which is now the Packhouse Museum. There was no shortage of wood for construction, and stones were procured from the islets in the archipelago, for instance. Founded by Count, Governor-General Per Brahe the Younger by order of Queen Christina, the town materialised “as if by magic”.