Tytyri Mine Experience

Limestone has been quarried and then mined at Tytyri in Lohja since the nineteenth century, and the workings run several hundred metres down in a series of levels. Part of the mine has been opened to visitors: a lift drops to around eighty metres and a guided route runs through galleries and chambers cut in pale rock, with machinery, blasting demonstrations and an explanation of how the stone is taken out and what it is used for. The mine above and below the visitor level is still worked, which gives the visit an edge that reconstructed mines lack. The temperature underground is constant and cool, and hard hats are issued at the entrance.

What you actually see

• Galleries eighty metres down - the visitor level of a working mine.
• Mining machinery in place - the equipment used to cut and move stone.
• Pale limestone chambers - the rock the mine is driven through.
• A mine still in production - working levels above and below the route.

When to go

Year round; the temperature underground does not change. Two hours. Visits are guided at set times and must be booked; there is no independent entry.

Honest expectations

Booking is compulsory and English tours are limited. It is cool and damp underground and warm clothing is needed. The lift and confined galleries are difficult for anyone claustrophobic. Photography rules vary.

Nearby

Lohja is above; Fiskars lies west.