Porvoo, Finland

Runo Hotel Porvoo

Price per night from$187.47

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR161.50), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Runo Hotel Porvoo Photos

Style

Rhyme-honoured rest

Setting

Picture-book Porvoo

Explore

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Runo is the Finnish word for poem, and Joanna Laajisto’s makeover of Runo Hotel Porvoo takes the theme and runs with it, resulting in poetry in motion. Modern Nordic design elements and contemporary Finnish art chime with restored Jugendstil features. A spell in the sauna followed by leisurely fika in the courtyard is quite the couplet. And when it comes to the Finnish plates whipped up for breakfast and lunch, you’ll find Runo’s kitchen team well versed.

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Facilities

Photos Runo Hotel Porvoo facilities

Need to know

Rooms

56, including 10 suites.

Check–Out

Check-in is at 3pm and check-out is at noon. Early check-in is free when availability permits, and there’s a €25 hourly charge for late check-out, on request.

More details

A Finnish buffet breakfast, including local jams and yoghurt, and bread baked at the hotel, is served 7am–10am during the week, or an hour later on weekends.

Also

There’s one accessible room, featuring an adapted bathroom (the largest in the hotel at seven square metres). The bar and breakfast area are on the ground floor and there’s elevator access to the sauna and communal toilets. If you have limited mobility, you may find some of Porvoo’s cobbled lanes challenging.

At the hotel

Free WiFi throughout. In rooms: 50-inch TV with Chromecast, steamer, Mysoda sparkling water maker, tea- and coffee-making kit, minibar (in some rooms), bathrobes, slippers and Dermosil bath products.

Our favourite rooms

Though purely decorative, the promise of an original art-nouveau fireplace in your room is hard to resist: Fireplace Suites also feature Porvoo old town views.

Spa

Turn up the heat in the hotel’s attic space, where the Finnish sauna includes a traditional cold-bucket shower and a fireside relaxation zone. There are also two spa treatment rooms with a range of massage and facial treatments available.

Packing tips

Comfortable sofas by Danish designers Carl Hansen & Søn lend themselves well to curling up hygge-style with a book in Runo Hotel Porvoo’s lobby lounge. The town has strong links to local literary heavyweights, Tove Jansson and Johan Ludvig Runeberg (the Finnish national poet, no less). Opt for Jansson’s enchanting Summer Book or a volume of Runeberg’s epic poems for an authentic flavour of life in rural Finland.

Also

Impossibly picturesque jogging routes abound along the Porvoo archipelago. But for guests who prefer to work out indoors, access to Runo Hotel’s nearby partner gym, Fitness24Seven, is free.

Pet‐friendly

Pooches that thrill to forest frolics and shoreline hikes will be in clover in Porvoo. Pets are welcome in all but the smallest rooms at Runo Hotel; a nightly fee of €35 applies. See more pet-friendly hotels in Porvoo.

Children

Porvoo’s fairytale charm is catnip for kids. Runo Hotel Porvoo has several suites and connecting rooms for families, and every child is gifted a Moomin-themed souvenir. A baby cot can be added for free and on request to all but Small and Medium rooms.

Sustainability efforts

The sensitive renovation of this century-old building made extensive use of existing materials and reclaimed woods, as well as taking the opportunity to bake in improved energy efficiency and modern smart-building technology. Produce sourced from local farmers and fishermen, coupled with motion-activated LED lighting, water-saving bathroom technology and renewable energy sources has helped earn Runo Hotel Porvoo its coveted Green Key certification.

Food and Drink

Photos Runo Hotel Porvoo food and drink

Top Table

Grab a banquette by the window for optimal views of the sweet, painted wooden houses across the street.

Dress Code

Dress down for a casual breakfast or lunch in the Runo restaurant – colourful Scandinavian prints are de rigueur in summer, but you’ll want cocooning fishermens’ woollens for post-brunch winter strolls.

Hotel restaurant

Set in the lobby living room, Runo Kitchen is an informal dining space that spins modern Finnish cuisine from local produce. Expect freshly baked breads, Finnish cheeses and house granola at breakfast and flavours of dill, garlic, capers and fermented cucumber in summery lunchtime salads and sandwiches. There’s a brunch option on weekends, starring pickled herring, lovage pesto, crushed potatoes with brown butter, and more. Dinner can be arranged for group bookings on request. 

Hotel bar

The long narrow Italian limestone bar in the lobby living room is a convivial space for conversation over snacks and signature cocktails. Try the Runo Clover Club, a sour and cloudy gin-based refresher with vermouth, raspberries, lemon and bubbly. 

Last orders

Breakfast is served until 10am during the week and 11pm on weekends, and the bar will keep serving you signature cocktails until 11.30pm (9.30pm on Sundays).

Room service

An in-room menu of salads, sandwiches and fries is available 24/7.

Location

Photos Runo Hotel Porvoo location
Address
Runo Hotel Porvoo
Rihkamakatu 4
Porvoo
06100
Finland

A restored former bank set in the storybook streets of Old Porvoo with its cobbled lanes and distinctive red riverside warehouses, Runo Hotel lies 45 minutes (and a world away) from downtown Helsinki.

Planes

It’s a 40-minute drive from Helsinki-Vantaa Airport. One-way transfers from the airport can be booked in advance at a fixed cost of €95 for up to four passengers and €121 for up to eight. It’s €89 and €115 respectively for the return leg.

Trains

Helsinki Central Station is a 45-minute cab ride from the hotel, for services across Scandinavia and beyond.

Automobiles

Cars are available to rent at the airport and, though you won’t need one for getting around Porvoo, you might be grateful for your own set of wheels if you plan to explore the wider archipelago. There are seven private parking spaces at the hotel, at a nightly fee of €25.

Other

The former steamship JL Runeberg departs Helsinki Market Square daily at 10am between May and early September. The cruise meanders through the many islands of the Uusimaa archipelago, docking a leisurely three-and-a-half hours later at Porvoo’s riverbank, which is just five minutes from the hotel.

Worth getting out of bed for

Curated experiences available through Runo Hotel Porvoo’s concierge team are led by the seasons. Take a guided Winter Nature Walk or lean into the holidays with a Finnish Christmas bundle that wraps up snowmobiling, reindeer farm visits, traditional sauna and even a rendezvous with Santa, as you choose. A wilderness guide can tailor serenity-prompting outdoor adventures in spring: choose from forest bathing, hikes in nature, meditation and/or foraging. And pack all your camera lenses for an expert-led photoshoot safari. 

Summer brings the chance to experience the midnight sun or get on board for a coastal cruise and lunch around the archipelago. And in autumn, fall foliage is as kaleidoscopic as the old town warehouses, and seasonal foraging trips extend to mushrooms and berries. 

Local restaurants

If you love photographing your food as much as eating it, Michelin-starred Vår is the place for you. Perfectly presented small plates form a colourful set menu that takes inspiration from the archipelago’s lakes, shores, forests and farms. This smart Nordic restaurant is set inside a former chocolate shop in the old town, so you can expect the sweet stuff to star in magnificently moreish desserts. And Meet District – a convivial Italian-Scandinavian joint specialising in charcoal-grilled dry-aged meat – takes care of the puns so we don’t have to.

Local cafés

Set in a converted storehouse with a riverside terrace, Paahtimo is notable both for the views and its Porvoo-roasted brews; return in the evening, when it morphs into a bar, to work your way through its assortment of seasonal, local beers. And in the old town, Cellar Café & Bar is an atmospheric spot, made cosy by vaulted ceilings, for your daily caffeine fix. 

Local bars

Cocktails at Runo Hotel Porvoo are hard to top, but it would be thorough of you to research the competition at nearby Glory Days, which serves up cocktails and live music into the wee small hours. 

Reviews

Photos Runo Hotel Porvoo reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this poetry-inspired Finnish hotel and unpacked the complete works of former local and celebrated poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, they’ll be waxing lyrical with a full account of their creativity-sparking break. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Runo Hotel Porvoo…

There’s a storied elegance to Runo Hotel Porvoo — a building that’s had as many lives as its setting near the old town. Brother-owners Erkka and Arttu Hirvonen pored over every element of its renovation, commissioning Helsinki-based designer Joanna Laajisto to deliver an understated, upscale hideaway that blends modern Nordic and Finnish design with period details such as arched windows, restored art-nouveau doors and monumental, tiled fireplaces. 

Appropriately for a hotel inspired by a poet (one-time Porvoo resident and national treasure, Johan Ludvig Runeberg), this stately stay has gallery-worthy artistic credentials, too. Pieces by contemporary Finnish artists are on display throughout and the hotel hosts the Porvoo Biannual group exhibitions. And when you’re hanging your towel, note that the bathroom ladders are upcycled from salvaged, traditional hay sticks. 

And yet there’s a warmth to Runo Hotel’s seduction, too. Take fika in the pretty courtyard, or linger over a weekend brunch of marinated herring served with just-baked sourdough. The hotel’s wood-panelled sauna and signature Clover Club cocktail (made with Finnish gin) may well match the pulling power of Porvoo’s old town — an alluring folkloric fantasia of painted wooden houses, chocolate-shop windows, and scenic riverside strolls. 

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Price per night from $187.47