Day 3: Savusauna! (Smoke sauna)

The main part of the manor house, by the roadside.

Today, we did something completely different! In all the years we have come here, we've had many hundreds of sauna experiences, but never one quite like today's. The savusauna, or smoke sauna, is a sauna heated for many hours in a room with no chimney, so it therefore follows that it becomes extremely smoky. After it's been thoroughly heated, the smoke is then vented out, leaving the heat which can last for 24 hours, as the stones are heated so highly. Normally, renting a savusauna is an expensive thing to do, but as it's a special week for enjoying saunas across the region here close to Jyvaskyla, there are chances to enjoy this for much less.

Taulun Kartano

So, we visited the smoke sauna at Taulun Kartano, a large country manor house that's about 12 miles south east of here. There are a variety of things you can do here, as well as enjoy the sauna, and it's in a building down close to the lakeside. When we arrived shortly after 2pm, there were a few other Finnish folk also there, and we were shown around by the host, Martti, who explained where the changing rooms and showers were. Once changed, we headed to the next room, where the savusauna was. It was quite a place. Large, dark and obviously it had been very smoky, but the smoke had been vented out before we arrived. Still, there was a bit of a sooty smell, and the ceiling was very black if you reached up and touched it. But the heat was gorgeous! Only a small amount of water needed to be thrown on the stones to produce wonderful waves of intense, smooth heat that promoted great sweating! Awesome! We had some short swims in the lake as it was raining, then enjoyed a bathe in the hot-tub and a really novel little barrel sauna that was also great fun. After a couple of hours, we enjoyed coffees and cakes before heading back to the car and home again. I have to say the smoke sauna is highly recommended - so thanks to the staff who were very helpful and friendly to us!

Entrance to the dark, smoky (but gorgeous!) savusauna.

Anna, Olga and Arnold inside the sauna.

Enjoying the hot tub outside. This was heated by a wood stove, like the hot tub here at our cottage.

The tiny barrel sauna!

It's a tight squeeze inside here!

Coffee area

Coffee and cakes time afterwards!

This evening, we've had more swimming and saunas here, with the sauna by the lake heated right up to more than 90c. And to finish off, we're watching Wales v Portugal, hoping Wales can win...

With a large area of low pressure sitting stubbornly right over central Finland and refusing to move anywhere fast, the low temperatures and damp, or indeed wet conditions that we have had since we arrived have continued throughout today. While I have to admit it's great to have the upstairs here nice and cool (compared to past years) and therefore sleeping well is easy, I would hope that we are shortly going to see better weather here. I have lost count of the number of times I have checked the weather this week and it still refuses to improve, but surely that will not be the case for long now. Fingers crossed...