Rovaniemi, Finland: Self-Guided Walking Tour

Looking for things to do in Rovaniemi? The capital of Finnish Lapland brings together Arctic culture, local history, forests, rivers, distinctive modern architecture and Christmas attractions. It is also home to Santa Claus Village on the Arctic Circle and several museums that explain the region’s relationship with nature and the north.

Neywo has a free audio guide for Rovaniemi with 19 narrated places, available in 11 languages, so you can explore the city while its stories play at the places themselves.

What to See in Rovaniemi

Santa Claus Village

Santa Claus Village is one of the best-known places to visit in Rovaniemi. This Christmas-themed attraction stands about eight kilometres northeast of the city, directly on the Arctic Circle, and includes Santa’s Office, his personal chamber and Santa’s Main Post Office.

Visitors can send letters to Santa Claus from the Main Post Office, addressed to Santa Claus, Santa’s Main Post Office, 96930 Arctic Circle Rovaniemi. The village’s festive buildings make it an essential stop for anyone interested in Rovaniemi’s connection with Christmas and Lapland.

Santa Park

Santa Park is another Christmas-themed attraction just outside Rovaniemi. Opened on 28 November 1998, it invites visitors into Santa’s world through festive shows and experiences connected with Lapland culture.

Popular belief places Santa Claus in Lapland, although Finnish tradition says that his actual home is on the remote Korvatunturi fell.

Arktikum

The glass-topped Arktikum is one of Rovaniemi’s most recognisable buildings. It houses both the Regional Museum of Lapland and the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland.

The Regional Museum of Lapland explores the area’s nature, culture, history and building traditions. Its permanent exhibition, Pohjoiset keinot, tells the story of Rovaniemi, Peräpohjola and the Sámi areas of Upper Lapland. The museum’s collections include objects, photographs, archives and natural-science specimens.

Pilke House

Pilke House is an interactive science centre devoted to Finland’s northern forests. Its exhibitions explain how forests grow and are managed, and how wood becomes the products used in everyday life.

The building is part of the experience: it uses ecological wood construction, with a wooden column-and-beam frame and load-bearing wooden wall elements. Pilke House opened in June 2011 and was named Forest Act of the Year by the Finnish Forest Association that same year.

Rovaniemi Art Museum and Kulttuuritalo Korundi

The Rovaniemi Art Museum is the municipal art museum and Lapland’s regional responsibility museum. Its collection of Finnish contemporary art has grown to more than 3,500 works, beginning with a gift of over 500 pieces from the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation.

The museum occupies a former post automobile garage built in 1933. Architect Juhani Pallasmaa oversaw its renovation in the 1980s, and the museum opened to the public on 17 October 1986. A later expansion created additional spaces for the museum and the Lapland Chamber Orchestra. The building is now known as Kulttuuritalo Korundi.

Lappia Hall and the Aalto Centre

Lappia Hall is a theatre and congress centre forming part of Rovaniemi’s administrative and cultural Aalto Centre. Its wavy roofline recalls the fells of Lapland and can suggest the movement of the Northern Lights when illuminated at night.

The building was completed in stages. Its first section opened in 1961, followed by the theatre and congress halls in the 1970s. Lappia Hall was the final building Alvar Aalto saw finished before his death in 1976. Today, it houses the Rovaniemi Theatre and three auditoriums named Kero, Saivo and Tieva.

Rovaniemi Church

Rovaniemi Church, or Rovaniemen kirkko, is the city’s main place of worship. Designed by Bertel Liljequist, the 850-seat church was completed in 1950, replacing an earlier church destroyed during the Lapland War on 16 October 1944.

The building’s most visible feature is the red neon cross on its roof, which can be seen after dark. Inside, the large altar fresco Elämän lähde, meaning “The Source of Life”, was painted by Professor Lennart Segerstråle in 1951.

Saint Andreas Church

Saint Andreas Church is an Orthodox sanctuary in central Rovaniemi. Dedicated to the Apostle Andrew, it belongs to the Orthodox Parish of Northern Finland.

Finnish architect Toivo Paatela designed the church. It was first blessed as a prayer house by Bishop Aleksander and formally consecrated as a church in 1962.

Jätkänkynttilä Bridge

Jätkänkynttilä is a cable-stayed road bridge across the Kemijoki River. At 320 metres long, it forms part of Main Road 78, also known as the Kajaani Road.

Opened on 28 September 1989, it was Finland’s first cable-stayed road bridge. Its slender design provides a clear view towards Ounasvaara hill to the southeast.

Ounasjoki

The Ounasjoki is the Kemijoki’s largest tributary and Finland’s longest single river tributary flowing entirely within the country. It joins the Kemijoki in Rovaniemi.

More than thirty rapids and around forty smaller streams lie along its course. The Loukinen and Meltausjoki are among its most notable tributaries, making the river an important part of the landscape around the city.

Forestry Museum of Lapland

In the Pöykkölä district, about 3.5 kilometres southeast of Rovaniemi’s centre, the Forestry Museum of Lapland preserves the region’s forestry heritage. The open-air museum shows how logging and timber floating shaped life in Lapland.

Its collection includes authentic forestry buildings and structures moved from different parts of Lapland since the 1960s. The oldest date from the early 1900s and the newest from the 1950s. Displays of tools, photographs and archival material illustrate the everyday lives of loggers and timber rafters.

Rovaniemi Local Heritage Museum

The Rovaniemi Local Heritage Museum presents life on a prosperous Peräpohjala farm around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its centrepiece is an 1840s empire-style log house from Pöykkölä farm, one of the few main houses along the Kemijoki to survive the Lapland War.

The original barn and two historic grain storehouses remain in their original positions, while other buildings were brought from elsewhere in Rovaniemi. The farm’s history reaches back to the 1600s, and it is also known as the birthplace of the trotting horse Kirppu.

RoPS and Rovaniemen Keskuskenttä

RoPS, Rovaniemi’s football club, has represented the city in blue and white since its foundation in 1950. Around a thousand players, coaches and youth teams are connected with the club.

The men’s team plays in Ykkönen and the women’s side in Naisten Kakkonen. Home matches take place at Rovaniemen Keskuskenttä, offering another way to experience the city’s local life.

Explore Rovaniemi with a Free Audio Guide

Download Neywo and follow the Rovaniemi Rebuilt: Aalto, Arctic Museums and a Eurovision Square walk. It is a 5.42-kilometre walking tour lasting 117 minutes, with eight narrated stops: Rovaniemi Art Museum, Lappia Hall, Rovaniemi Church, Lordi’s Square, Pilke House, Arktikum, Jätkänkynttilä and Saint Andreas Church.

Neywo is a Rovaniemi self-guided walking tour and audio guide: the app tells the story of each place as you reach it, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule. After exploring Lapland, continue discovering Finland or compare Rovaniemi with Helsinki, Tampere, Porvoo or Turku.