Viitasaari

Viitasaari is a small town in Central Finland, by the lake Keitele.

Understand


Viitasaari is a small town surrounded by lakes: the 230 lakes in the municipality cover a fifth of the municipality's area. Sounds by the centre separate Ylä-Keitele from Keski-Keitele, both parts of the Keitele. Half of the 6,500 inhabitants live in the town itself.

The area was inhabited already in the Stone Age. Sámi people are believed to have arrived more than 2,000 years ago and still lived here in the 16th century. Western hunters and fishermen have been here since the 300s, Tavastians since the 1000s. The area was settled by Savonians in the 16th century. Henrik Gabriel Porthan, who raised interest in the history of Finland in the 18th century, was from Viitasaari. 1882 Viitassari got a municipal doctor, the first in Finland.



Get in
E75 and national road 77 run through the town, the latter here part of the Blue Highway from Mo i Rana in Norway, via Vaasa, Viitasaari, Kuopio and Joensuu to Petrozavodsk in Russian Karelia. E75 runs through Finland from Helsinki in the south via Jyväskylä, Viitasaari and Oulu to Utsjoki in the far north. The distance to Kuopio is 75 km, to Jyväskylä 105 km.

There are coaches from Helsinki, Lahti, Jyväskylä, Oulu, Rovaniemi, Kajaani, Ylivieska, Joensuu, Kuopio, Seinäjoki and Vaasa.

Small craft can reach Viitasaari from Lahti, Heinola, Jyväskylä and Äänekoski by the Keitele–Päijänne–Vesijärvi waterway. Commercial traffic on Keitele is nowadays of minor importance.

The railway from Jyväskylä northward passes through the municipality, but the nearest passenger stop is at Pyhäsalmi in Pyhäjärvi, 87 km north from Viitasaari centre.

Jyväskylä airport is 78 km away. Most coaches from Jyväskylä drive via the airport.

Get around
Car, boat or bike are your safest options to get farther from the centre and the thoroughfares. The centre is small enough to be walkable. In winter, ice roads lead to the north-east and south-east over Keitele, ice conditions permitting.

By taxi
See Central Finland

See




Do



 * Boating or canoeing on Keitele. Much of Ylä-Keitele is a Natura 2000 area, with some nice shoreline without cottages and some infrastructure for visitors. Also the other parts of the waterways are nice.
 * Fishing in the rapids (requires local permits).