Back to Helsinki, sauna

We got an early train from Vaasa back to Helsinki, and fortunately our hotel room was ready early because after all those long days we were really tired! We stayed in a hotel that was converted from a prison, and they really leaned into the history a lot. We had a bit over a day to continue to explore Helsinki, and we got up to some nice walks, meals, transport, and sauna!

We visited an art museum and then went back to the hotel for a bit before heading out to a really lovely dinner at Vinkkeli. The food in Finland was so good – and at Vinkkeli for dinner they offered a 4 course meal with the ability to pick the courses from the a la carte menu. Everything was excellent – I could go on but do want to call out the malt bread with a really crispy crust as outstanding. We had already booked a sauna at Loyly for the next morning, so when we started chatting with the Finnish couple next to us in the restaurant and they asked if we’d been in a smoke sauna, we could say that we had plans to try one in the morning! They were super nice and assured us that saying the word Loyly was very hard for non-Finnish speakers. They demonstrated – you just shape your mouth into an O shape and make some lllll and uuuuuuu sounds up and down a bit. It’s fun but I didn’t feel like I got anywhere close to understandable pronunciation!

So the next morning, after a very nice breakfast at the hotel, we headed to a 9am sauna appointment at Loyly. They are super organized, you have two hours from your start time to enjoy all of the facilities, which are the showers and changing areas, outdoor showers, 4 saunas (one is a smoke sauna, the others are regular saunas), and the star attraction for me, a ramp and ladders into the Baltic Sea for cooling off. They also provide towels and small towels for sitting on in the sauna. These small towels for sitting on in a sauna have not only a specific word, but two words! Laudeliina and Pefletti.

Having received tips on how to best sauna from Ronan and Lena, we did the same kind of process, shower, sauna, cool off in sea (!), shower, drink water, repeat. The smoke sauna was definitely an experience – it was very dark inside and like the name says, very smoky. I found it hard to stay in that one and left pretty quickly. The box sauna with great view below was really a nice one – the other two were back inside the building and larger but without the dramatic views.

After leaving Loyly (it’s easy, just say “lllluuuulllluuuooooyyy”) we took the tram to the central part of Helsinki and met Conal and Emily for lunch at Fazer Cafe, which Conal had said would be like Bewley’s in Dublin, and he was exactly right! We had sandwiches and cinnamon rolls and enjoyed catching up with Emily and Conal some more. Then we all headed off to the train to the airport, and back to our homes. Really great trip, we definitely would love to go back!