On todays adventure Steffi and I went to the Island Kuusisto which is about an hour away from the city center by bus and from there we went with a really small bus to the ruins. But choose your time of travel wisely, if you go there at 4pm on a Friday like we did you might not get a bus back from the ruins to the main road, but more about that later. In this bus you don´t need to press the stopping button some minutes before you want to be led of, because it just stops, when you press it... believe me we made the mistake to press it earlier and the driver looked at me really confused and asked if we want to get of the bus in the middle of nothing and I explained to him, that we want to go to the ruins and than he dropped us off at the parking lot.
We walked up the Kappelinmäki Hill which is just a few minutes before the castle ruins. The way up to the top was very nice and I thought everything looked super magical and somehow special. On the top we had a very nice view over some parts of the Island and we read about the history of the hill. In medieval times it is said that there was a graveyard on the hill and the people from the bishops castle were transported up to the chapel and buried there.
After we went down the hill, which is about 58 m over the sea level we went to the bishops castle ruins. The ruins are very beautiful but I think it is always sad to see a the left overs of such huge buildings, because once there was so much live inside of those walls and I always imagine what it would have been like living there. The earliest mentioning of the castle was in 1295 when a letter was dated in Kuusisto, but the construction started in the early 1300 s. Most of the castle was build by Bishop Magnus II Tavast (1412-1450) which were also its most glorious days. There were two major fires one in 1318 and one in 1485, it destroyed many archieves, but the castle itself was restored both times. In 1500 s the castle had a three-storied main castle and palace, chapel, outbuilding wing three baileys with 5-6 m walls, several towers and a 10 m round turret. It is also surrounded by the sea, which made it more difficult for the enemies to land.
The reign of catholic bishops ended in 1522 when the last bishop Arvid Kurki fled the castle, shipwrecked and drowned. The Danes took over and King Gustav Vasa ruled for one year then the reformation and broke the power of bishops and he ordered the demolition of the castle in 1528.
At its best times the Kuusisto Bishops castle was even more beautiful then Turku or Helsinki Castle.
After we saw everything at the ruins we sat down by the sea and at around 7 pm we went back and like I said before there didn´t go a bus back so we had to walk... the main street is about 6 km away from the ruins, luckily we met a group of Finns in a bus who saw, that we were a bit lost and they offered us to drive to the main street even though they wanted to go the other direction. They all were really nice and actually graduated form TUAS just one year ago.
I would recommend to go to the ruins, but maybe between Monday and Thursday and not at 4 pm but earlier, just so that you can catch the bus back.
Referances:
https://www.nationalparks.fi/kuusisto/history
