Teijo Nature Centre – Natura Viva

Natura Viva offers the most varied outdoor activities in Teijo National Park. Visit the Teijo Nature Centre before hitting the trails at Teijo National Park.

Located in the Teijo National Park, the Teijo Nature Centre is a central Natura Viva site in the Teijo area. The Nature Centre is located in the southern part of Teijo National Park on the shore of idyllic Lake Matildanjärvi.

Indeed, the Teijo Nature Centre is the best place to start your trip in Teijo National Park. Natura Viva gives you the best tips for your outdoor excursions in the National Park and sells maps of the area. In addition, you can purchase fishing permits at the Teijo Nature Centre which are required for fishing in the lakes of the national park. There is a parking lot by the Teijo Nature Centre. It is the most convenient starting point for your excursions around this idyllic, 34-square kilometre national park on the West Coast.

Natura Viva’s services in Teijo National Park

Natura Viva also has several accommodation sites and facilities in the Teijo National Park area on the shore of Lake Matildanjärvi, including the genuine wilderness cabins Vaappu and Lippa, the Vicksbäckinlahti reservation hut for 50 people and the Matildanjärvi lakeshore sauna.

The Natura Viva’s outdoor rental shop is also located in Teijo Nature Centre. Here you can rent kayaks, canoes, SUP boards and a rowing boat for Lake Matildanjärvi. In addition, we rent fatbikes which can be rented also independently at the self-service rental point located near the Nature Centre. Read more about the rental shop’s operations.

Teijo Nature Centre Café

The Teijo Nature Centre also has a café. Buy coffee, pastries, salty snacks and other food for your trip here. Teijo National Park has more than 10 lean-to shelters, cooking shelters and a campfire site. Cook sausages on the campfire and fix a cup of coffee on your hike. In connection with lean-to shelters, there is often room for setting up a tent. Spend the night in the national park under the stars!

And don’t forget to stop by at the Nature Centre’s café by Lake Matildanjärvi where you can enjoy hot drinks and admire the beautiful nature of Teijo. The café also has a drinking water point and shower facilities. The Visitor Centre café opens for the summer season in May.

In addition, the Nature Centre café is open to the customers of the Teijo caravan area. This camping area has space for 19 caravans next to the Teijo Nature Centre. You can already book your spot on the caravan parking area – come meet other RV travellers and hear the latest news from the road around the campfire. Book a caravan spot for the whole summer. Teijo Nature Centre has facilities for washing and grocery shopping, and there is plenty to see in the national park.

Teijo rental shop provides equipment for water activities

Teijo National Park offers a wide range of activities in the nature. At the Teijo Nature Centre rental shop, you can rent kayaks, canoes, SUP boards and rowing boats as well as fatbikes. The fatbike self-service rental is available even when the Nature Centre is closed.

Lake Matildanjärvi is ideal for peaceful kayaking – the weather at the lake is mostly calm and there are several landing sites. The island of Isoholma, located in the middle of the lake, is a particularly fun excursion destination. There is a campfire site on the island where you can sit to rest and view the landscapes for a moment. Paddling is a wonderful hobby that also improves fitness, and by kayak, you can easily get through even longer distances.

Enjoy the peace and scenery of nature

You can also get SUP boards from the Teijo rental shop. SUP or stand up paddling is a fun, popular summer activity which is quick to pick up. The SUP board resembles a wide surf board. The paddler stands or kneels on the board and paddles slowly onwards. The delicate waves of Lake Matildanjärvi are gentle even to beginners, and the lake’s clear waters provide a great setting for this trendy hobby. Sure enough, the SUP board can take you even further than the shore – you can take a full day for a SUP trip. The SUP boards from the rental shop are inflated and can be packed in a backpack if necessary. If you want to, you can combine SUP boarding with a hike – you can explore several lakes in Teijo National Park. Take enough time to enjoy the scenery – the SUP board makes travel easy!

And if paddling and SUP seem to be too time-consuming or challenging, you can also rent a rowing boat from Teijo Nature Centre for shorter rowing trips. Rowing at the lake is a great, traditional Finnish summer activity – bring friends or family members along, pack a picnic and head for the lake. Rowing is also highly recommended for foreign guests: Finnish lake nature is internationally unique and surely attracts the admiration of any visitor. The rowing boat is also, of course, an excellent help for fishing, and you can use it to find the biggest catches of Lake Matildanjärvi.

Cycling trip to Teijo

Teijo National Park is also a cyclist’s paradise. There are many good and versatile cycling routes in the area. In addition, three easily accessible ironworks villages are located just outside the boundaries of the national park on the western side of the park. Read more about these historically significant destinations below.

Rent a fatbike and visit all three ironworks villages in the same day and feel the wind in your hair from a bike’s saddle. Fatbikes are in their element in off-road driving, as the wider than normal tyres and gearbox are designed for rocky routes and uneven driving surfaces.

Natura Viva offers fatbikes at the rental shop at Teijo Nature Centre from May to October. The self-service rental is always open to visitors even when the rental shop is not.

Get a season pass to rent affordably for the whole summer season

In 2023, Natura Viva offers a season pass for outdoor enthusiasts. The pass allows the access to all equipment at all Natura Viva locations at a fixed season price of €279. With the season pass you can use fatbikes from May to October in Teijo. In the summer season water activities are available during opening hours of Teijo Nature Centre. You can also use the season pass to spend time outdoors at Nuuksio, Vuosaari, Korpilampi and many self-service paddling points in the Helsinki metropolitan area.

In fact, the season pass is a very convenient and affordable purchase for active visitors: at one fixed price, the holder of the season card will have access to the entire range of rental equipment. The bookings are made on the website, and the season pass holder no longer needs to have their own expensive outdoor equipment. In addition, when using rental equipment, you do not have to worry about maintaining or storing the expensive equipment – Natura Viva rental equipment is always in top condition and in storage waiting for the next renter.

In addition, if you want to use only the kayaks, SUP boards or Fatbikes, you can also buy activity-specific season pass which are even more affordable than the season passes at €229. We also offer companies season passes (€549) which allow their employees to enjoy exercise in nature at the most beautiful sites in Southern Finland. Read more about Natura Viva season cards here.

Hiking in Teijo National Park

Teijo National Park has more than 50 kilometres of marked trails. Some of the routes are designed to be accessible and some are suitable for the whole family – these routes are shorter and easy to travel. However, some trails have elevation differences and are better suited for more experienced hikers. Hikers traverse past cliffs, dense forests, mires that are typical to Teijo but rare in southern Finland, streams, lakes and rivers. Teijo has everything that an outdoor visitor could hope for. There are hiking challenges for both beginners and experienced outdoor enthusiasts.

Duckboards have been built for hikers over the many mires in the national park. In Teijo, hikers walk on forest trails and sometimes dip onto village roads. The hiking landscapes are very versatile and entertain even the most demanding visitors. Duckboards at the mires are a grand viewing point for rare plants, and in the forest you might even find lynx tracks. All the most typical mammals in Finland like Teijo, and the rare flying squirrel also lives in the area.

Embark on a hiking trip

Natura Viva’s Teijo Nature Centre provides maps and instructions for finding hiking routes. An excellent first hiking route is the 5.5 km loop of Lake Matildanjärvi, which, as its name suggests, runs counterclockwise around Lake Matildanjärvi. Some of the trails are located in the northern part of the national park and there are parking spaces near them, which are the most convenient way to reach these trails. Read more about the trails in Teijo National Park here.

There are lean-to shelters and campfire sites along the Teijo trails, and camping in the national park is recommended in the vicinity of these rest areas. An overnight hiking trip to Teijo is a memorable experience! In the northern part of the park, there is also a larger reservation campsite on the shore of Lake Hamarinjärvi, which is often used by scout groups.

In the southern part of the national park, just over half a kilometre from Teijo Nature Centre, you can find the ancient shoreline of Jeturkasti. This rocky field consists of several hundred boulders that have remained in place since the sea level fell to its current level at the end of the previous Ice Age about 8,500 years ago. The shoreline of Jeturkasti was part of the seabed, the so-called Baltic Ice Lake, during the Ice Age before the sea level fell. As the land level fell, the ice and frost have shaped Jeturkasti into a magnificent natural attraction.

Visit Teijo’s ironworks villages

Outside the boundaries of the national park, there are three historical ironworks villages within the reach of a hike or a cycling trip: the southernmost and nearest being Mathildedal, Teijo in the middle, and the northernmost and smallest Kirjakkala.

The history of the ironworks industry in the Teijo region will take you towards the end of the 1600s, when the first ironworks in the area were established at the villages of Teijo and Kirjakkala. Some successors of these factories are still operating at the Teijo village, which is the largest of the three ironworks villages in terms of population, and each of the three villages has maintained structures and foundations from the 1600s.

The ironworks villages have plenty to see and experience

At Kirjakkala, you can stay in ironworks buildings from the 19th century, and at Mathildedal you can watch the hustle and bustle of the guest harbour or visit handicrafts workshops. The church in the village of Teijo is the smallest stone church in Finland. It is built on the land of the Teijo Manor, whose main building in the Rococo architecture style dates back to the 1770s. Alien species such as alpine roses, beech trees and Douglas firs were planted on the manor land back in the day. These plants thrive in the climate in Teijo which is located on the northern border of continental Europe, and you can imagine that you are in Central Europe when walking around the manor. You can admire these plants on the Totti nature trail.

Every village in the area is also a vibrant summer destination. Visit small entrepreneurs’ shops, eat and drink at local taverns and brewery restaurants, and listen to live music at pubs and stages. All three villages are located on the shores of the Teijonselkä sea area along the same main road, and from the south to the north the distance between Mathildedal and Kirjakkala is about seven kilometres.

Fishing in Teijo National Park

Teijo National Park offers a wide range of fishing opportunities. Many rare fish species, including eels, were planted in the lakes of the area back in the day. Today, the most important planted fish is the rainbow trout which is planted seasonally in Lake Matildanjärvi. The crayfish also enjoy the clean lakes in the Teijo area.

Lake Matildanjärvi is a special fishing site for Metsähallitus, and a separate fishing permit is required for all fishing activities, including angling and ice fishing. You can purchase this permit and all other necessary fishing permits from Natura Viva’s Teijo Nature Centre. Please notice that the western side of Lake Matildanjärvi is a fish planting area where fishing is always prohibited.

The normal right to fish is valid on the other lakes in the area: Fishing with a hook and a line and ice fishing are permitted without a separate permit but a permit is required for lure fishing. In addition to Lake Matildanjärvi, there are four other lakes in the Teijo National Park: Lake Puolakkajärvi next to Lake Matildanjärvi, Lake Sahajärvi further up in the middle of the park and Lake Hamarinjärvi in the northern part of the park, which is the largest and most majestic lake in the national park. Next to it is the smaller Lake Likojärvi.

The Teijonselkä sea area, located outside the ironworks villages, also has great fishing waters where you can find fish species typical in the Gulf of Finland. Below Teijonselkä, the water system becomes the Hummelsfjärden channel, from which the Archipelago Sea opens.

Get your permits at the Teijo Nature Centre and take a memorable fishing trip to Teijo. You can also fish in Lake Matildanjärvi from a rowing boat, which you can rent from the Nature Centre. Read more about fishing in Lake Matildanjärvi here.

How to find Teijo National Park

Teijo National Park is located south of the city of Salo, about 20 kilometres from the city centre. Teijo National Park is about 140 kilometres away from Helsinki and 80 kilometres from Turku. The best route is the E18 motorway from the Salo junction past Salo and to the main road 1824. You can also get there via Perniö, in which case you take the road 183 west of Perniö.

Public buses run to Teijo but the shifts are infrequent. The buses leave from Salo, where there is also a station on the Helsinki-Turku railway line. See more detailed schedules here.

Teijo Nature Centre is located at Matildanjärventie 84, 25660 Mathildedal (Salo).