As Rauma reaches its 575th year, residents of this surprisingly cosmopolitan city will celebrate its the beauty of its Unesco-listed old town, and its history as an important medieval port.

The city of a smidgen under 40,000 people on Finland’s west coast, clustered around an immaculate Unesco-garlanded wooden old town, celebrates its 575th anniversary this week. Depending on how you classify these things, that makes Rauma either the country’s third, fourth or fifth oldest chartered town. Anyway, it’s old … with enough of a concentration of culture to make Unesco look twice: the bronze age cairns at nearby Sammallahdenmäki also made it on to the World Heritage list.

Finland’s gateway

“It means a lot,” says 33-year-old freelance writer and travel blogger Saana Jaakkola, who has lived here for 12 years. “People here are very proud of their roots.”

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