I love the islands in the Baltic Sea, and an easy and impressive way of getting a glimpse of the archipelago is to do a day trip from Kasnäs on Kimito island (south from Salo) to the famous Bengtskär Lighthouse 25kms southwest of Hanko. Rosala is an island and the closest village 18 kms north of the lighthouse, and it has a Viking Centre with reconstructed viking houses, museum about their ways of life, and some remains such as graves.
It takes about 3 hrs to drive from Helsinki to Kasnäs’ tiny harbour, and there is enough of parking space for those who come by car. There is a little restaurant by the jetty. I think there are some buses going there too but they would not be going very often. If you have a direct boat from Kasnäs to Bengtskär the boat trip will last you about 1 hour. There are also some boat connections from Hanko to Bengtskär but then Rosala is not on the route.
The lighthouse has an interesting history: if I remember correctly, there has at one point been 20-30 people living in it and on the tiny rock island. They had their own school there, grew there veggies (where on that rock????) and apparently played hide and seek like all other kids in the world. According to a story, a kid living in the lighthouse saw his first trees when he visited Rosala at the age of six (?), and was amazed to see that big flowers. It must have been such an isolated existence! Please find more accurate information about Bengtskär here, and I will let pictures introduce the feel of the islands.
First Rosala with lovely boat sheds typical for the archipelago and the Viking Centre:
Bengtskär lighthouse and island. There is a little café and hotel in the lighthouse now. Btw, loads of very old carvings on the rocks there. I suppose there wasn’t that much else to do?:
If you want to see more of the archipelago, take a look at my old post about the ring road from the area where I was born.
Free But Fun 
I love, love, love Bengtskär! It’s a marvellous place. We went there last summer.
Even if there’s really no scientifically approved facts that Finland really would have been a viking society back in the days, it’s a bit of a fun to go and have the cozy lunch there.
Bengtskär is lovely, isn’t it?! Söderskär lighthouse on of our destinations next summer 🙂
[…] for families) in Helsinki. Or you can make a longer trip, maybe stay the night at e.g. the Bengtskär lighthouse. A good (long) weekend trip is to do the archipelago Ring Road and experience many of […]
Looks like a great family getaway! It just makes me want to travel more :]
Welcome! 🙂
Beautiful photos!
Thanks, citramanica. It is lovely out there!
Looks beautiful! And thank goodness there wasn’t much else to do 😀 .
🙂
Beautiful pictures! The one of the staircase gave me vertigo!