Kitee is a small rustic town in North Karelia, surrounded by lakes and offering plenty of activities for lovers of nature, history, and culture. A holiday in Kitee is an enjoyable experience for families, as the town has lots of fun things for children to do.
The best-known attractions include local history at Kitee Museum, old goods at the shop museum, the handsome stone church, and landscape gardens with an abundance of trees, shrubs, and roses. Kitee also has a model railway around 800 feet in length. The town is home to the famed metal band, Nightwish. The centre of Kitee is compact, but contains all the services you might need, so you can spend a holiday in Kitee without necessarily going far from the town centre.
In summer, Kitee delights visitors with its beautiful lake scenery and fine sandy beaches. The town lies on the shore of Lake Kiteenjärvi, and there are several other lakes nearby. Kitee is an excellent summer destination for families with children, where small swimmers can enjoy swimming in shallow-bottomed beaches. The beautiful natural landscape of Kitee makes it a pleasant destination for hikers.
Situated on highway 6, Pajarinhovi Spa has a large selection of water slides and Finland's biggest swimming pool for children. Next to the spa is Kitee Zoo, which is definitely worth a visit. The fourth largest zoo in Finland, it has a rich variety of domestic and wild animals, with 200 individual animals and 50 different species. Good shoes are advisable since the walk round the zoo is more than a mile long and is hilly in places.
You can easily reach Kitee by train or by car. Kitee railway station is near the centre, and numerous trains stop there daily. The town is about thirty minutes by train from Joensuu and about four hours from Helsinki, which has an international airport. If you are travelling by car, highway 6 passes close to the town centre. Kitee is a nice little destination that will surprise you with its versatility.
