Turku, Finland

TURKU (or Åbo as it's known in Swedish) was the principal town in Finland when the country was a province of Sweden, losing its status in 1812, along with most of its buildings in a ferocious fire soon after – occurrences that clearly improved the place, if the above quotation is to be believed. These days Turku is small and highly sociable – and thanks to the boom years under Swedish rule and the students from its two universities, it's bristling with history and culture, with a sparkling nightlife to boot. More