Greetings from Jyväskylä. Jyväskylä is not a small city by Finnish standards:) It is the seventh largest. However, the center is quite small. Jyväskylä is a nice city to live in. In summer also a good tourist destination. In winter, I would rather go to the ski resorts of Lapland, where there are more experiences available. Even in Finland it is sometimes too hot. Now it's 30 C, which is way too much for me.
Jyväskylä is an old university city and has mostly been developed around the university. Of course as the name implies it's the "grain town" so lot of agriculture too and you can still see sheep at the meadows near Kortepohja and Kuokkalanpelto not far from the city center. Today the city is formed of multiple regions put together from the vast regions around it and since the completion of Kuokkala-brige the other side of the lake has become just part of the city center (almost). You've watched some of Ismo Leikola's stand-up clips and he is from Jyväskylä and former physics student at the white university buildings at Ylistönrinne shown on the video with the walking bridge over the cove that houses three most provinent particle accelerators and study groups in Finland. You could flip a coin if one would like to between Tampere and Jyväskylä, but if you want to see a university city that is still more rural the coin would turn on Jyväskylä's side.
How come no-one mentioned THIS, yet?! :O D --> Jyväskylä is also the birthplace of the architect and designer Alvar Aalto, and perhaps the most well-known, Globally, for that! There is an Alvar Aalto museum in the city, as well as many buildings designed by him. Many Alvar Aalto fans (especially Japanese) come to see these from around the world!
You can rent a floating lake sauna so there's that. Most hotels are within an easy walking distance from the train station, as is the whole city center. There are several chain hotels and Hotelli Yöpuu is probably the most expensive. Nothing crazy but you'll feel awkward in their restaurant if you're not wearing nice clothes. Sadly a lot of the life from the city center has moved to one of those big market areas you drive to, so you'd find quite a few empty storefronts. Basically the center is 90% bars and restaurants. If you end up here I'll gladly show you around. Also going from Helsinki to Jyväskylä you would definitely notice the difference in people. The further you travel from capital the more chill people will be, you can literally see the difference in their stress levels and how they react to strangers.
Central - Finland has many beautiful small towns and villages, e.g. Saarijärvi, Viitasaari, Keuruu and Äänekoski and Laukaa, which the traveler should definitely visit. Lots of beautiful lake landscapes, forests that are hundreds of years old (Pyhä-Häkki National Park), rugged ravine ponds formed by the Ice Age (Julmat Lammit), Saraakallio's Stone Age rock paintings, Hyyppäänvuori, (definitely a place worth visiting, from where the rugged lake scenery opens up to Lievestuoreenjärvi) hitonhauta, (ravine sinkhole), just a few to mention.❤❤
Jyväskylä is not in a valley, but the ground level drops towards the lake Jyväsjärvi and the view was from Harju, literally "ridge" that borders the city center (on the other side is the lake Jyväsjärvi). I've been living in Jyväskylä for over 20 years, I'm not originally from here and if you decide to come here and need a local guide, feel free to contact me.
You said it right the first time, the person in the video said it incorrectly ;) and yes it is a great place to live (I live on the islands just outside the city)
Portraying a vision of relaxing scenic serenity is how they try to lure you there, but people drive like maniacs down there and other people cheer them on. You don't want to live there: "WRC History: Top 5 spectacular moments Neste Rally Finland".
Honestly what i love about living in Jyväskylä, has to be the excellent connections by the bus or a train all over Finland. Makes it easy to live even though due to eyesight issues i do not have a car or driving license. I'm not saying that other major cities in Finland does not have such robust connections, but Jyväskylä happens to be the hub that most public transports tends to go through anyway. honestly only detour i could think of is that the train connection to Helsinki goes through Tampere. though even then it takes little over 3 hours so not that much longer than it would take to go straight to Helsinki on a car. overall great city and i see no reason to move anytime soon.
Good thing about Jyväskylä is that all the bars are located almost with in vicinity.. And being a university town it means you can collect a lot of game in one long night.. :D
Besides Helsinki and Turku, if you're going to a third city, choose Tampere. That's my firm recommendation, since those are the "big three" when it comes to Finnish cities, for sure (in the south). Personally, even though I grew up around the capital area, out of those three, Tampere has my heart. Jyväskylä is a beautiful area but as you noticed, the city center is quite small and it's pretty quiet. So if you want to see a Finnish lakeland city that's bigger and livelier with activities and cool architecture, Tampere is definitely the city you want.
It depends of what you want to do here in Finland. If you want to experience WRC Rally then Jyväskylä is the right place to be in beginning of August. Or do you want to see nature that you have everywhere in Finland. I would recommend Helsinki, Turku, Tampere. 😊
In my view, in Finland any town with more than 40K population is a big town. This is the land of lakes and forests, made by the iceage disruptor cataclysm. I lived in Lahti, in southern Finland, and it has a nice sort of urban/natural space with the ridges that surround the central. When you climb up on the colossal Salpausselkä, you're above the roofs of the city. I wouldn't say it's essential, there's nicer cities in Finland, but on your way to Jyväskylä it would be pretty easy to stop at Lahti.
Beautiful city and surrounding areas, gone to a small city just outside of it between the ages of 0-19 every single summer and easter break in the 80's and 90's since my mother is from close by. But i was stuck on a farm with no possibility to escape from there except in a small rowing boat made out of wood 🙂 still loved it, fishing, swimming, shooting with air-rifles. If you love nature the areas around Jyväskylä are amazing.
From Jyväskylä here :) it's nice place to visit :) lot of students and there's also skiiing place , that valley looks like is called Harju, Harjun portaat :) Lutakko is beautiful place :) shared this with my friends :)
2:00 These sights are from Päijänne National Park in Asikkala which is approximately 150 km to the south of Jyväskylä. I do recommend this route from Helsinki to Lakeland. It's very scenic.
As you saw from the vid, Jyväskylä is a lot smaller city than Tampere, Turku, Helsinki and so on. The city center is basically a few streets crossing each other. There's a lot of forest and lakes around it. You can rent a cabin or saunalautta (saunaferry) from nearby if you really want to relax 😃 A lot of countryside living on the edges of Jyväskylä. For example, it's 17km to the city center from where we live and the public transportation doesn't reach us good enough. But I love it, peacefull and private place for us 😊 If you come here, I will buy you a beer 😁
Jyväskylä doesn't have many old buildings because the city decided to tear down most of them during the 1960s and 1970s. Lots of the areas that now have apartment buildings used to have picturesque detached houses, but they got replaced by big concrete buildings. Some of the university buildings are worth seeing, but otherwise there isn't a lot of good architecture.
Top 3 list where you should visit in my opinion: Helsinki because it is the capital, Tampere because there are lots of things to do and Jyväskylä to see lot's of lake's and how people really live in the small parts of Finland.
I recommend To you visit everywhere where you want to. Everywhere is something "special" for peoples who come here. I hope that you can take longer time than 1 week be In here so you can travel around and visit where you want to and experience as many things as possible around our beautiful country.
actually its pretty big but city area is small, theres 150k ppl jyväskylä. beautiful city/ and pukkilanharju is must if u go somewhere round there. but first like bigger citys to visit if u come finland is like, Helsinki, Tampere, Porvoo, (Old area), alot of citys u can reach little run :D
Well even instead of Turku, i would rather go to Tampere. And also if you go first in Helsinki, you can take train to Turku and from Turku to Tampere and from Tampere to Jyväskylä if you like. I haven´t spend time in Jyväskylä more than 30 minutes while i was eating in a Burger King. City looks nice tho but usually i am headinng somewhere else and i just stop by in there.
Funny how entite video was all filmed from city center. So it looks very small. There is lot of parts of the city around center. All pictures in video were from within a few kilometers.
