A day in Turku

Today Emma had a basketball tournament in Turku. We left home at 9:00 and were back at 21:00. Girls won both games, they played very well. Emma made 14 points in the first game and 16 in the other. There was almost 3 hours break between those two games and we had some time to walk in Turku city center. We had Sami with us and you can see him in the picture with my hubby.

The red building in the picture is Katedralskolan i Åbo = The Cathedral School of Åbo, it's the Swedish-language senior high school of Turku. In theory, the Katedralskolan is the oldest institution of learning of Finland as it has an organizational continuity from the medieval Cathedral school, founded in 1276.The school was founded for education of boys to become servants of the Church. The schoolhouse was situated in the wall surrounding the Cathedral of Turku. Mikael Agricola, the founder of Finnish literature, was the headmaster of the school 1539-1548. As the Royal Academy of Turku, now the University of Helsinki, was founded in 1640, the senior part of the school formed the core of the new university, while the junior year courses formed a trivialskola, a grammar school. The graduates of Turku Cathedral School were eligible to be admitted to the university.

The current schoolhouse was built after the conflagration of Turku in 1827.