Town view

Varkaus is a town in North Savonia.

Understand

Varkaus is an industrial town with about 23,000 inhabitants, best known for its paper factories. The name of the town translates to "theft" in modern Finnish, but it's more likely that town originally got its name from the old Finnish word for strait.

Get in

By car

Highway 5, one of the major roads between southern and northern Finland, passes through Varkaus. The distance from Helsinki is a little more than 300 km.

By train

Trains between Pieksämäki and Joensuu stop in Varkaus.

By bus

Varkaus is at the crossroads of highways 5 and 23. Buses between Helsinki to Kuopio, among others, stop in Varkaus.

By plane

There are no longer any scheduled flights to Varkaus airport. The closest airports with regular passenger traffic are in Kuopio, Jyväskylä, Joensuu and Savonlinna. All of these entail at least an hour on the road, and only have flights from Helsinki anyway, so flying is not a practical alternative for getting in.

By boat

Varkaus is situated on the shores of Lake Saimaa which is accessible from the sea via Saimaa Canal.

Get around

There are a few local bus lines operated by City of Varkaus in the town center (map) if you don't want to walk or drive.

• 02 Taksi. Smart phone app offers address based routing and gives price offers from different taxi companies. Pricing not told on the web. (updated Mar 2020)

See

• 1 The Museum of Mechanical Music (Mekaanisen musiikin museo), Pelimanninkatu 8, ☏ +358 10 2390 380. 11AM-6PM, closed in the winter months and Mondays. As the name reveals, it's a museum presenting mechanical music instruments, gramophones, jukeboxes and such. adults €14, children €7. 
• 2 Taipale canal (2 km from the center towards Joensuu). Finland's first canal with guard locks, opened in 1840. Nowadays the boats use a wider canal, opened 30 years later, but the original one is still open as a museum. 
• 3 Church of Varkaus, Savonkatu 1. The main sight is the altar fresco – the largest in Northern Europe. 

Do

View from Linnansaari National Park

• 1 Linnansaari National Park (daily coaches to the Porosalmi crossroads, 1.5 km from the park, also services to Oravi on the other shore; the Varkaus–Savonlinna shipping/boat route goes through the area, reachable from several directions). Lush islands and rocky islets. Best explored by boat or canoe, but there is a boat service to the main island and taxi boats available. Nature trails, an old croft, Saimaa seals and osprays. Tour skating in winter.  

Festivals and events

• Sampea ja sampanjaa: 7–8 August 2020. Music festival with also program for small children. (date needs updating)

Eat

• 1 Severi, Käpykankaantie 10 (in the Teboil gas station next to highway 5). All-you-can-eat lunch buffet (10AM-6PM), popular among truck drivers. Outside lunch hours they serve a la carte and different hamburgers and pizzas. lunch buffet €8.90. 

Sleep

• 1 Hotel Oscar (formerly Scandic Hotel Oscar), Kauppatori 4, ☏ +358 17 579 011, fax: +358 17 579 0500, hotel@hoteloscar.fi. Check-in: 3PM, check-out: noon. (updated Jan 2018)

Go next

• Kuopio - the largest city in Northern Savonia is one hour away by car or bus.