Turku ยท on the Aura
Aurelinna
An 1889 customs house on the river bank, with forty-two rooms, a weighing hall that still has its four-metre ceiling, a sauna in the old bonded store and a casino in the gallery one floor up.
The house
Built to weigh what came off the boats
Goods landed here, went up the granite steps and onto the scales. Boots have worn those steps into shallow curves, and we've left them as they are.
The building went up in 1889, downstream of the cathedral, where the Aura widens before it meets the sea. For ninety years it was a customs house, and after that it stood mostly empty until it became this: forty-two rooms over four floors, a dining room on the old weighing-hall floor, and a bar by the doors that once opened straight onto the quay.
The iron tie-rods still cross the ceiling, and the corridor floorboards run the length of the building and creak where they always have. Anything new has been put in without making a fuss about it.
Rooms
Forty-two, and no two the same
There are four types, named for where they sit in the building. River Rooms face the water and the morning light. The Tare Loft is under the roof beams on the third floor, the Courtyard Rooms look into the cobbled yard and the birches, and the Stairfoot Single is one small room beside the granite stair for somebody travelling light.
All the rooms have blackout blinds (you'll want them in June), a kettle and loose tea. There's no minibar in any of them.
The boats return to the quay in May and are lifted out again in October. Most winters the river freezes, and the view from the River Rooms goes white and very flat.
Seasons on the AuraEating and drinking
Vaaka, the Lantern Bar, and a terrace when it is warm
Vaaka serves breakfast to house guests and dinner from Tuesday to Saturday, under the weighing hall's high ceiling. The kitchen buys from the market hall and two farms east of the city, which keeps the menu short.
The Lantern Bar is smaller and darker and sits by the old quay doors. Coffee, rye bread and the newspapers wait in the Morning Room until eleven, and the Quay Terrace is open from May until the evenings turn.
Aurelinna Casino
Upstairs in the weighing hall gallery
Aurelinna Casino occupies the gallery along the first floor of the old weighing hall. From the lobby you walk up the granite stair, or take the lift beside it, and you never step outside the building. The casino is part of the house.
It's a small room with a few tables, a bar at the far end, and hours that begin in the evening. The legal age in Finland is 18, and we check photo ID at the door on every visit, hotel guests included. Staff on the floor set the limits at each table, so ask before you sit down. If you decide you want to stop altogether, self-exclusion is arranged in person at reception.
This is a land-based casino inside the hotel. Nothing on the website can be played or bet on, and it takes no deposits or payments. The casino has no app.
The sauna is below ground in the old bonded store, where goods still waiting to clear duty were locked away. It has granite walls and a wood-fired stove, with a cold room next door.
The bonded storeSauna and garden
Heat, cold, and a courtyard with four birches
House guests book the sauna by the hour at reception. Most evenings there are two sittings, and the later one is quiet by agreement. The cold room next door is kept at eight degrees, and in winter you can walk out to the river steps if you'd like something colder.
The cobbled courtyard is small, and its four birches came from a nursery north of Turku. The afternoon sun reaches it from April.
Finding us
Vaakaranta 7, on the river bank
It's ten minutes on foot from the market square, fifteen from the railway station, and twenty from the cathedral if you walk along the water. The airport bus stops two streets away. The hotel has no car park, but the public garage on the next block stays open through the night.