• Guided tours in English run daily in June, July and August, take about 45 minutes and are included in the ticket; the rest of the year tours are in Finnish
• Leave the stroller behind, since steep stairs, low doorways and an uneven stone courtyard make it hard going; there's stroller storage by the ticket office
• About an hour from Helsinki by car or train, and the castle is a 30-minute walk from Hämeenlinna train station

Häme Castle is Finland's only medieval brick castle, begun in the 13th century and later used as a women's prison. Now a museum, it lets kids climb steep stairs through a maze of rooms, see swords, spears, cannonballs and a crossbow in the keep's Weapons Room, and find suits of armor in the Knights' Hall.