The home of Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Finland's national poet, is preserved as it was when he lived here from 1852 until his death in 1877. Runeberg spent the most productive decades of his career in Porvoo, writing the epic Tales of Ensign Stal, the national anthem, and much of the poetry that shaped Finnish national identity during the long Russian period.
The house is a modest but dignified bourgeois home in the Biedermeier style. The rooms are furnished with the family's original belongings — Runeberg's writing desk, his library, the family portraits. The museum also runs a small cafe serving Runebergintorttu, the almond-and-raspberry pastry named after the poet.