It is so hot that my lungs feel like burst bubblegum. A stranger is whipping my naked back with a branch. I am 12.
It is so humid that my nostrils burn like mustard. Two humming wizards are whacking my hairy back with a herb that I think would taste nice in a roast. I am 29.
I am in the sauna.
The notion of wanting to bake oneself like the world’s largest game bird has been instilled in me since an early age. That’s part of the genetic deal of having a Finnish parent.
But every decade I have ventured farther from Finnishness, instead, soaking up the rich cultural nuances of Maidstone, Kent.
So when an invitation passed my inbox to experience the Finnish tradition of sauna fully and completely, I simply text: ‘Mum, where’s that sauna hat I used to have?’
There are 5.5million people in Finland. To accommodate them are 3.5million saunas. That’s almost 0.64 saunas-per-person across the country from the sauna capital of the world, Tampere, to the pub quiz-approved capital of Finland, Helsinki.
Private saunas are in almost every apartment with the alternative incomprehensible to most Finns.
‘Going from a sauna-less apartment to sauna-on-demand is like switching from analogue TV to Netflix. If a property listing states no sauna, you simply skip over it,’ says Heidi Johansson, my Helsinki Partners tour guide for the day.
Heidi Johansson looking lovingly at floating saunas (Picture: Chris Rickett / Metro.co.uk)
A sauna is often the first function room sketched on new architectural blueprints. Like how capital cities are plotted along rivers or trade routes. You start with the most important thing.
Finns are literally born in the sauna, a sterilisation belief, I’m told. Some Finns even have their last rights read out in the sauna.
‘It became the gateway in and out of the world’, explains Heidi.
This lady is absolutely brimming with sisu (Picture: My Helsinki)
The Finns have a concept known as ‘sisu’. It’s an everyday courage to tap into, to aid you in overcoming life’s challenges with resilience and grit.
Much like Mike Myers in the majority of the Austin Powers storylines, I had lost my mojo. Overstressed. Overtired. Overworked.
It was time to get my sisu back, baby, and if I was going to get it anywhere in Helsinki it would be at Löyly, one of TIME’s World’s 100 Greatest Places to see before you die.
Stock models shoot the breeze inside the sauna at Löyly where I am unable to capture images myself due to members of the public in their swimwear and the real fear of my equipment combusting in the heat (Picture: My Helsinki)
I suspected that the fleeting silhouette of Löyly would be the last place I saw when I was told we were winter swimming in the Baltic sea inbetween saunas and in the middle of December.
I normally dip each individual toe into heated swimming pools at regular intervals to gradually acclimatise my body to the water temperature and because I am a wimp. I yelp in lukewarm baths. This is not my scene.
‘We call it swimmer’s high,’ says Katja Pantzar, who literally wrote the book on sisu.
Whether it’s an allergic reaction to being tickled with pine or an ethereal awakening, my body is positively buzzing.
Once I can feel my ears singe in a pitch-black traditional sauna, I’m whisked outside, bare trotters on snow, and galloping towards the sea.
Every passing second plunges my body temperature back towards human and makes the idea of a 4C sea dip even less appealing.
But I do it. Driven purely by the need ‘for content’. I make unintelligible squeals from within the water, scramble back up the ladder and fall feet over bum in my haste to run back to the sauna.
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My heart is beating faster than my thudding footsteps. Swimmer’s high is a real thing and I’m clueless to the cuts and bruises that appear the next day.
After a one-minute window of veering between burning alive and freezing to death, my blood is certainly pumping. The seesaw successfully births sisu.
I want to hold onto this rejuvenation for as long as possible so I travel cross-country to Tampere in western Finland, to meet a pair of magic men.
Tampere leans more towards public saunas and has 56 public saunas to Helsinki’s 12.
It’s home to the world’s oldest public sauna, Rajaportin, which is still running 105 years since opening its doors as soon as Finland became an independent country.
I arrive at the door of Tahmelan Huvila, where I’m told I’m about to have a very special, and very different, sauna experience. It’s where my encounter with Juha and Matti begins, self-titled sauna shaman who are complete with pointy hats.
Finnish sauna shaman Juha (right) and Matti (left) right before things got very strange indeed (Picture: Eevakaisa Mölsä)
‘We’re going to put you under an old Finnish spell,’ says Juha so quietly, but low in tone, that it sucks all the room noise out like a vacuum.
We are in an old creaky-floorboarded, flickering-light basement that could pass for a haunted mansion with flying colours.
Over the course of three sessions, I am seasoned, baked, lulled, caressed, handled, hit and decorated until I am left sitting with a crown of branches upon my head, my feet in a bucket of icy water, while wind chimes echo in my ears and a firm hand reaches for my heart through my chest.
I walk out of the sauna a new man. A newly anointed king in nothing but his swimming trunks who can’t see his own feet for the snow. I cradle a heap of snow in my arms like a baby and then smush it into my forehead.
Whether it’s an allergic reaction to being tickled with pine or an ethereal awakening, my body is positively buzzing and it lasts until the early hours of the morning, when I finally sleep like a log.
The next morning, I use the private sauna inside my personal hotel room bathroom to stop, think and mull events over.
The pristine Art Sauna in Mänttä that opened in June 2022 and definitely looked and felt like a Bond villain lair (Picture: Eevakaisa Mölsä)
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I get a shining nod of approval from my guide on the final day when I go winter swimming at the astounding Art Sauna in Mänttä. I swim within a small circle of 0.5C water that’s been cut from the ice that has completely frozen over Lake Melasjärvi, despite constantly protesting ‘absolutely effing not’ since my Löyly debacle.
It is horrible, but I can get through it because I know moments of pain and uncomfortableness will so gracefully melt away off my shoulders soon enough.
Once I’m back in the sauna – where there are no clocks, outside pressures and where all inhabitants are equal – everything is okay.
Where to stay in Finland and how to get there
If hotels themed around a nightmarish axolotl are your thing, you should check out Hotel AX in Helsinki where rates start from €139 per night.
If you want to stay inside an arena that sports 70 private sauna hotel rooms, then Lapland Hotels Arena should be your go-to where rates start from €175 per night.
Finnair flies directly to Helsinki from London Heathrow, Manchester and Edinburgh airports all year round with their Heathrow service operating up to 5x per day.
Return fares from London to Helsinki start at £166 in Economy Class and £546 in Business Class, including all taxes and charges.
Finnair fly six times per week from Helsinki to Tampere, with connecting passengers also able to choose from a daily bus service between the two cities.
Return fares from London to Tampere, via Helsinki, start at £192 in Economy class including all taxes and charges.
For more recommendations on the best places to see, eat and drink, look no further than the experts at Visit Finland, Helsinki Partners and Visit Tampere.
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Also: getting really, really cold in freezing water.
