Culture and leisure - Hämeenlinna

Last modified: 23.11.2023

Hämeenlinna is a city of culture where you can explore the world of history, art and design.

The city’s most famous landmark is the Häme Medieval Castle on the shore of Vanajavesi Lake.

The city centre’s most notable cultural landmarks are the Hämeenlinna Art Museum and Skogster Museum, which is the main exhibition space of the City Museum and whose upper floor features the oldest Savings Bank Museum exhibition in the Nordic countries.

At the birthplace of Sibelius, you can get acquainted with the childhood and adolescent years of Jean Sibelius, Finland’s national composer. The city’s other interesting locations include Museum Militaria and the Prison.

With the Museum Card you can access the city’s six major museums as well as a number of smaller specialised and local museums. Located less than a half an hour’s drive from the centre of Hämeenlinna, Iittala’s Glass Hill is home to Design Museum Iittala, which presents the history of Iittala’s glass factory.

Hämeenlinna Art Museum

Hämeenlinna Art Museum contains a diverse selection of art for the whole family right in the vicinity of Hämeenlinna’s city centre. The museum operates in the Verkatehdas area in two buildings, both of which feature changing exhibitions on the different currents and trends of visual art.

Galleries

Theatres

For a theatrical experience in Hämeenlinna, you can visit not only Hämeenlinna theatre but also Eräs Theatre as well as the numerous summer theatres that pop up in every region during the summer season.

Hämeenlinna is also home to the Royal Puppet Theatre of Häme and Hämeenlinnan Miniteatteri, the amateur theatre for children and adolescents.

Music

In the music world, Hämeenlinna is especially known as the birthplace of Jean Sibelius. Hämeenlinna has also served as starting point of many other renowned Finnish cultural personalities, from Vexi Salmi to Irwin Goodman and Paleface.

Our city hosts around 100 concerts at ten different venues every year. Our selection of music experiences caters to all tastes. The most famous concert venue is Verkatehdas, an old baize factory. In addition, Hämeenlinna is the location of the veritable Kantola event park, which has served as the venue for some of the world’s largest bands, including AC/DC, Metallica and Iron Maiden.

Cultural activities for children

The children’s culture services of the City of Hämeenlinna offer a diverse selection of cultural services and basic art education for children and young families. The city has pledged to support children’s culture, which guarantees cultural experiences and art for each child in Hämeenlinna on every Saturday of the school year.

Hämeenlinna was the first city in Finland to be recognised as a child-friendly municipality by UNICEF, and it has renewed this distinction ever since.

For more information on the activities that we have to offer, see e.g.:

Libraries

Hämeenlinna City Library encompasses the main library and the local libraries of Hauho, Kalvola, Lammi, Nummi, Renko and Tuulos, as well as the mobile libraries Bella and Urho.

The contact details and opening hours of the libraries are available on the website of the Vanamo Web Library.

Hämeenlinna is home to a fine selection outdoor and exercise areas

The City of Hämeenlinna features excellent spots for outdoor sports activities as well as various indoor sports facilities. In Hämeenlinna, you can engage in a wide range of sports, including skiing, football, ice hockey, martial arts, climbing, basketball, volleyball, floorball, badminton, orienteering, dance, tennis, swimming, and athletics.

Hämeenlinna is full of locations for various outdoor and indoor sports activities. Our city features:

Two swimming halls: Hämeenlinna and Lammi as well as Aulanko Spa,
The outdoor swimming pool in Ahvenisto in the summer, as well as ice swimming locations in the wintertime,
dozens of beaches,
two ice arenas,
a football hall,
the Loimua Arena Sports Hall,
the Ahvenisto Race Circuit,
spectacular outdoor areas in, for example, Aulanko, Ahvenisto and Evo, as well as
a huge selection of smaller sports fields that are also used for ice skating in the winter

Hämeenlinna and the surrounding areas are quite the golf paradise with several high-quality courses. Golfers can experience international level courses with stunning lake views and try for a hole-in-one in the “Tiilaakso”, Tee Valley.

Watch our sports demonstration videos to learn about all the great sports opportunities that Hämeenlinna has to offer. Select the videos from the dropdown menu in the upper-right corner of the video window. The videos can also be viewed on the City of Hämeenlinna’s YouTube channel as well as on the city’s Facebook page.

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Sport clubs and championship-level teams

The city is home to around a hundred sports clubs that offer a variety of exercise opportunities. The clubs provide children and young people with plenty of opportunities for trying out different types of sports.

There are over 100 sports and exercise clubs in Hämeenlinna so there are
options enough for anyone regardless of size and age. HPK’s junior ice hockey club has hundreds of excited players, FT Trackers train new inside hockey hopes and Hämeenlinnan Tarmo works hard to promote exercise.

For more detailed information about the city’s sports clubs, check the clubs’ own websites.

castle, galleries, museums, music, sports, theatres