🇫🇮 Finland · Lakeland
Savonlinna is one of the most romantic scenes in Finland: a small city spread across islands in the middle of great Lake Saimaa, with a storybook medieval castle rising straight out of the water. That castle, Olavinlinna, from the 15th century, is the best preserved in northern Europe and the heart of the city, both for its history and because every summer it hosts one of the most prestigious opera festivals in the world.
Set in the very heart of Lakeland, Savonlinna is the gateway to the maze of water, islands and forest of Saimaa, Finland's largest lake and one of the loveliest in Europe. It is a place for boating, for getting lost among islands, for breathing the purest air and, with luck, for spotting the extremely rare Saimaa ringed seal, a unique species that lives only in these waters. Nature is everywhere.
Outside the opera season, Savonlinna is a quiet, peaceful town; in July, by contrast, it transforms and fills with music lovers from all over the world. This guide covers the essentials of the city and its lake: what to see, how to reach the east of the country, what the castle and the festival cost, how to sail Saimaa and how to make the most of the visit, planned above all for the bright Finnish summer.
Savonlinna was born around its castle. In 1475, the Swedish regent Erik Axelsson Tott ordered the fortress of Olavinlinna (Saint Olaf) built on a small island in Lake Saimaa, to defend the eastern border of the kingdom of Sweden against the Russia of Moscow, in a hotly disputed area. The castle, one of the northernmost in Europe, withstood numerous sieges over the centuries and changed hands between Swedes and Russians. The town of Savonlinna, officially founded in 1639, grew in its shadow. After passing to Russia and then to independent Finland, the castle lost its military function and, in the 20th century, became the setting for the Savonlinna Opera Festival, which gave the city international fame. The full history is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The inland world of forest and water where the Finnish soul was forged: the Karelia of the Kalevala, the industry of Tampere and the thousands of islands of Lake Saimaa.
Read the history of Lakeland →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The history of Savonlinna begins with a castle raised at the edge of the known world. At the end of the 15th century, the region of Savonia, in the east of present-day Finland, was borderland disputed between two powers: the kingdom of Sweden, to which Finland belonged, and the Grand Principality of Moscow, an expanding Russia. The border between them, fixed in medieval treaties, ran through these forests and lakes, and it was an area of constant insecurity, raids and pillage.
To secure Swedish control over Savonia and defend it from the Russians, the regent of the kingdom of Sweden, Erik Axelsson Tott, ordered a fortress built in 1475 on a small rocky island in the middle of Lake Saimaa, on a strategic strait. He named it Olofsborg (Olavinlinna in Finnish), after Saint Olaf, the sainted king of Norway, patron of the warriors of the north. Its position on the water made it almost impregnable and allowed it to control the lake routes.
Olavinlinna was one of the northernmost stone castles in Europe and a remarkable work for its time and place, built by master craftsmen brought from further south. With its thick walls and circular towers, it became Sweden's eastern bastion and a symbol of power in a remote land. In time, the town of Savonlinna would be born around the fortress, its name meaning literally 'the castle of Savonia'.
For more than three centuries, Olavinlinna lived on the front line of the permanent conflict between Sweden and Russia over control of eastern Finland. The fortress was besieged, attacked and fought over many times, and its history is the history of that hot frontier. It withstood several Russian sieges in the 16th century, during the wars between the two powers, and it was reinforced and modernised to cope with gunpowder artillery, with new bastions.
The fortress's fate changed with the great wars of the 18th century. In the Great Northern War and in later conflicts, Russia gained ground at Sweden's expense. In 1714 the Russians occupied the castle, which was returned to Sweden by the peace treaty. But in 1743, after another war, the Treaty of Åbo moved the border westward and Olavinlinna, with its whole region, passed into Russian hands. The Russians kept the castle as a frontier stronghold and added new fortifications.
During that period of Russian rule, the fortress gradually lost military importance, especially when, after the war of 1808-1809, all of Finland passed to Russia and became the Grand Duchy of Finland: the border moved away and Olavinlinna was left deep inside Russian territory, with no enemy in sight. The old castle at the edge of the world was becoming obsolete as a fortress, just as the town around it was taking shape.
Although the fortress dates from 1475, the town of Savonlinna as such was founded considerably later. In the castle's shadow a settlement of merchants, craftspeople and fishers had grown up, supplying the garrison and making the most of the position on the lake routes. In 1639, under Swedish rule and on the initiative of the influential governor Per Brahe — a key figure in Finland's development — that settlement was officially granted town rights, and Savonlinna was born (Nyslott in Swedish, 'new castle').
For a long time, Savonlinna was a small, remote town in the heart of Lakeland, far from the country's main centres. Its life revolved around Lake Saimaa, which was at once its means of communication, its source of food and its mark of identity, and around the castle that dominated the landscape. The town, spread across islands linked by bridges, had a quiet, provincial character.
The 19th century brought improvements that connected it with the rest of the country: the Saimaa canal system (with the great Saimaa Canal, opened in 1856, linking the lake with the Gulf of Finland) turned the lake into an important trading route, and later the railway arrived. Savonlinna also began to attract the first tourists and summer visitors, drawn by the beauty of the lake and the picturesque castle, at a time when northern landscapes were coming into fashion. That tourist discovery would pave the way for the great cultural transformation of the 20th century.
Savonlinna's great reinvention, and that of its castle, came through music. In the early 20th century, the celebrated Finnish soprano Aino Ackté, one of the great opera singers of her time, was captivated by the courtyard of Olavinlinna castle and by its extraordinary acoustics and atmosphere. Convinced that this medieval stage on the water was unique for opera, she organised the first Savonlinna Opera Festival in 1912, in the fortress courtyard.
Those first festivals, in the years before and after the First World War, were a notable success, but they were interrupted for decades by the upheavals of the century: Finland's independence (1917), the civil war (1918) and then the wars against the Soviet Union. The castle, meanwhile, definitively lost its military function and became a historic monument, restored over the 20th century to bring back its medieval appearance.
The festival was reborn in force in 1967, and since then it has been held every summer without a break, becoming one of the most prestigious and important opera festivals in the world. The castle courtyard, covered with a large canopy, seats more than 2,000 people per performance, and it draws singers, orchestras and audiences from all over the planet. Aino Ackté's vision turned remote Savonlinna into an international opera capital for the month of July.
Contemporary Savonlinna lives, to a large extent, on its heritage and its nature. The Opera Festival is the great engine of its fame and its economy: every July, the city transforms and fills with music lovers from all over the world, while for the rest of the year it keeps the quiet character of a small lakeside town in eastern Finland. Olavinlinna castle, restored and open to visitors, is the most visited and best loved monument, a symbol of the city and of centuries of frontier history.
But Savonlinna is also, increasingly, the gateway to Lake Saimaa and its exceptional nature. Saimaa, the largest lake in Finland and one of the most beautiful in Europe, is an immense maze of islands and forests that draws nature lovers, boaters and travellers looking for the essence of the Finnish summer. The region has become a destination for nature and wellness tourism, with cruises, lakeside cabins (mökki) and outdoor activities.
One symbol ties Savonlinna today to nature conservation: the Saimaa ringed seal, a species unique in the world that lives only in this lake and was left isolated after the last ice age. Critically endangered, with barely a few hundred individuals, it has become an emblem of Finland's environmental commitment and a draw for visitors who dream of spotting it. So the town that was born as a fortress at the edge of the world is today a place of culture, music and pure nature, one of the most special corners of eastern Finland.