When I passed by the city centre, on the afternoon of June 27th, I was surprised by the amount of people hanging out next to the river, some of them wearing costumes.
I googled a little bit and found out a Medieval Market was taking place, and to be honest, I don’t even know why it took me by surprise to find out that Turku hosts the largest medieval event in Finland, taking into consideration that Turku is Finland’s oldest city.
How was it?
When I finally had the opportunity to visit the Medieval Market during the last day of the exhibition, on June 30th, I was completely amazed.
As soon as I stepped in to the old market square, I was transported to a city of the middle ages, with happy vendors wearing medieval costumes, selling all kind of things: rugs, handicrafts, tools and jewelry, among other things
What impressed me the most, was the food. That was a true spectacle!!
Long lines of people trying to get food I had never seen before, looking both, exotic and out of this century. When I came closer, I realized the food was mostly salmon, fish, chicken, and of course, a huge pork being cooked and served right there, in front of everyone.
There were also stands of food from different parts of the world (I enjoyed a good plate of Thai food), games for children and different presentations: women singing, laundry washers gossiping and the “pope” enjoying his time, walking around the Market.
The only thing I would’ve liked a bit more, is to understand the presentations or the different food descriptions, since everything was in Finnish and as I have mentioned in previous posts, my Finnish level does not exceed 10 words… Apart from that, everything was just perfect!
By far, the Medieval Market has been one of my favourites activities in Turku: it takes place every year and is so worth visiting!
Three last things that I would like to mention: this year, 136,000 people visited the market!!! seriously, where did all come from??. Second, great amount of the visitors are children, but if you haven’t met Finnish children yet, let me tell you one thing: they are completely amazing. I didn’t hear them crying or yelling or shouting or anything, not even once!! Seriously, this children are incredibly well behave. Third, you would never believe how chatty Medieval Turku is. People were actually talking to each other, laughing together.
What an experience!!!
