"Admittedly I thought this was going to be another tourist trap. On the outside it reminds me a little of Brans Castle but for €16 admission I thought it was going to scarce.

I was greeted warmly and it was mentioned that free lockers were available. I was more than happy to drop my cumbersome backpack.

I loved the transition between each room, it felt natural with the narrow steps and ceiling and everything had good presented information.

Once I had gone round the castle I collected my bag then headed to what was signed as gift shop. I wasn't prepared for another massive tour of things. I spent a good few hours here. Would definitely recommend."

Penny Lane

"Places that have been around for over seven hundred years collect history, especially if they're used and adapted over that time. Turku Castle has been around long enough that the /geography around it/ has changed; originally built as a small fortification on a smaller island in the middle of the river it eventually grew into a local seat of feudal government and got bigger and better fortified as it connected to the northern shore and the river itself migrated south. Since it was in use this entire time, it was adapted both to its changing roles and to the changing architectural styles and methods of its times. Like many other such places, parts of the castle were damaged beyond economical repair for the time, functionally abandoned, then a subject for renovation and restoration by Romantically-driven movements, damaged some more by World Events™, and finally restored in the modern era with more modern sensibilities regarding the preservation of such buildings.

All this lead-in is to say that a goodly portion of Turku Castle's restoration is of the "light touch" vareity. Some portions have been restored/renovated to a condition to show what they would've been like in well-attested times, particuarly the Renaissance-era outer wings, but others, like the medieval central bailey, are preserved structurally so they're not ruins but otherwise not trying to be what we imagine they would've looked like at the time. For a few examples (for which pictures are provided), where there's still signs of murals on the walls they've been preserved but not /restored/; if they're faint, they're faint. If they're more visible because they were protected behind a bookshelf for a couple hundred years, then that's the state they are preserved in. The old chapel used to have a vaulted ceiling in the medieval period but this was dismantled somewhat roughly later to match both Renaissance preferences for rectilinear rooms and for the building materials; both are preserved in that it's a rectilinear room but it's clear where the vaulting was.

The portions of the Castle that are more museum-like, usually the Renaissance areas, are more completely restored but this appears to be done both as a way to ground the exhibits and also to demonstrate the stronger academic knowledge of better-recorded times. These exhibits are comprehensive, recounting the entire history of the castle, the roles it played in a local and regional sociopolitical context, and the sorts of people who lived and worked in it.

An important thing to note about Turku Castle that's different from some other fortifications I've visited is that there is a LOT of it, the layout is linear with two circuits (Medieval and Renaissance), and you will be going up and down stairs for all of it. Pencil in at least a full day to go through it or else you'll find yourself rushing towards the end. In hindsight I'd almost recommend going through it in two visits (or at least one visit broken up by a refreshment recharge), one for the medieval portion and one for the Renaissance portion.

In terms of language barriers: as long as you can speak and/or read one of the languages you'd expect to see in the region (plus English) there is no real language barrier."

Tim Cooper

"The castle had medieval and then renaissance era sections. The description about the rooms gave more context, but the medieval era section could have been furnished more since it looked empty. The renaissance era section was much more interesting."

Jamala Khaligova