The city of Pori is the regional center of Satakunta. We drove here via Tampere. We'll be driving up the west coast to the town of Kokkola. We must renew our passports and this time we need to appear in person to be fingerprinted. A lot of people did not renew their passports during the Covid-19 restrictions and there is a huge backlog. We could not get appointments anywhere near where we live the entire summer. We had to drive 500 km to the north for an appointment at a reasonable time. But this is actually fine because I haven't visited this part of the country for a very long time.
The last time I visited Pori was over 20 years ago. I had come here virtually using Google Maps Street View but was pleasantly surprised. Immediately to the center there is an old working class district with a lot of about a century old wooden buildings. We're staying in a small hotel in one such building. Many of the buildings have been renovated after Google took the street view photos. It looks better now. It is actually quite rare in Finland for entire old city blocks of old wooden buildings like this to still exist.
Pori has a total population of about 84,000. It was founded in the 16th century and its neighbor and predecessor, Ulvila, was founded in the 14th century. These days, the port of Pori is 30 km to the northwest on a cape. Postglacial isostatic uplift has caused the coastline to move tens of kilometers to the west and made the river impossible to sail for any modern cargo ships up to the city centuries ago.
Tomorrow, we'll visit the cape.
The street on which our hotel is.
We went down town to get something to eat. The central parts are not very attractive. Most of the buildings were built from the 1960s to the 1980s with some new ones in the mix. Not very attractive.
The family wanted to retire to the hotel. But I wanted to take a few shots by the river and the other more attractive parts.
The building on the right is an old cotton factory, converted into a large shopping center and the university campus.