From Somero to Hämeenlinna
The Old Oxen Road of Tavastia is a marked historic road from Turku Castle to Castle in Hämeenlinna. We drove that road with Porsche Macan S Diesel on July 2014. This article is the second part of that trip where the journey continues from Somero. If you still haven’t read the first part, maybe it would be best to read it first from here.
I had been the driver from Turku to Somero so it was time for Marko to take the reigns of our horse or actually around 270 horses. Both of us are extremely keen on driving and we could drive from morning to sunset. So we usually need to agree on changes of driver or else the one who started would drive the whole time. It’s also more safe to change driver now and then but also it gives both possibility to take photos during the drive.
While we continued the trip from Somero, the Oxen road of Tavastia seemed to flow more in a forest while the first part was with fields and riverside. Road is still tarmac but at places called Renko and Porras, the road is museum road once again and with gravel surface. There was also a Sports Academy called Eerikkilä along the road quite soon after crossing the highway 2.
We drove these small country roads about 53 kilometers until we ended up in highway 10 again. Luckily it’s only a short visit and after that the Oxen road of Tavastia continues as gravel road. When we were there, this particular part of the road was just evened out. Ok, the road was flat with no holes but the process had brought large round stones to the surface and our car being a brand new test car, we had to be super extra careful.
After those gravel parts we got to Viisarintie. It’s tarmac road and goes around to the north side of Hämeenlinna with eventually popping up in the city central. The last part of the road is to drive through the city to the castle. The end point of our trip was at the parking place of Castle of Hämeenlinna. We didn’t visit the castle (as we didn’t visit the Turku Castle either) because the time was already past noon and we had to drive back to Turku as well. Now we chose the highway instead.
We had driven from Turku to Hämeenlinna via the old Oxen Road of Tavastia and got to enjoy the beautiful scenery and interesting varying roads along the way. I can honestly recommend driving this road at least in the summertime when the cafe’s and small shops are open. Road is open during the winter too but windy roads can be quite slippery and the scenery is not as nice. But when ever you’ll drive this road, take time to enjoy it.
Here’s the video of the second part of the trip:
