This is the Finnish sauna where, holidaying with a friend's family, I first experienced the sensible Finno-Scandinavian attitudes to being naked.
The sauna & start of jetty (16k)
Inside the sauna (12k)
The lounge (15k)
Wall poster (25k)
The sauna is shared by two families who built their holiday cottages,
known as a "stuga", on an island in the Baltic. The sauna is by the side
of the sea. The jetty gives an easy route from the sauna, over the rocks,
to where one can plunge off the end for a cooling dip.
As the families expanded over the years then each stuga also expanded.
In the old long summer school holidays the families would spend several months
living here.
However these stugor are not just for warm weather. In the winter it is
possible to drive to the island over the frozen sea. My friend tells me
that at minus 20C she finds the snow too hard to roll in and prefers to cut a hole
in the frozen sea for her after-sauna dip.
The social custom of sauna is similar to the English traditional cry of
"Visitors! Put the kettle on" - except in Finland it is "Visitors! Sauna time!".
Then friends are invited from nearby stugor and farms. The sauna, being wood-fired,
takes a while to bring up to temperature and advertises the coming event with
a sweet smelling plume of smoke from its chimney.
Everyone uses the sauna in order of age - leaving the teenagers the last slot.
Small children go with the adults because the wood fired stove is very hot and
can be dangerous to touch. Note the little heart shaped towels to sit on.
After you've been in the sauna, and sea, a few times you retire to the adjacent
lounge where you toast makkara (sausages) over the log fire and drink weak beer.
