Finland counts five million inhabitants… and two million saunas. It is not practically any more one luxury, but a way of living.

“It is really formidable, explains the former player star of the LNH Jari Kurri, which initiated his/her colleagues of Oilers d’ Edmonton whereas it evolved/moved with this club in the years 1980. They came at home for the sauna from time to time.”

Useless to say that the tourist who arrives to Finland will take an enormous pleasure to discover this “obsession” of the country. In fact, if you never went in this country, you never were in a true sauna!

Authenticate sauna
Certain Finns will even say to you that an electric sauna is not a truth. For the purists, a true sauna is maintained with a large somebody and wood stove to fill it regularly. “It is like that that it is done and one adores that”, affirms Aki Arjola, a member of the Company of the saunas of Finland.

Mr. Arjola is the good person to see when one travels to Finland. In fact, it is necessary to be sponsored by two members of the company to have access to a sauna of Helsinki which is without similar in the world. If you have friends who live there, they will probably know somebody who will be able to organize you a visit of this exceptional place.

Mysterious Taj Mahal of the saunas
Obviously, the hotel where you will place will have its own sauna, coal-fired, and perfectly correct. But the sauna which one speaks, located on the Finnish gulf, is what one can describe as Taj Mahal of the saunas, attended by the cream of the celebrities of planet. “Bill Clinton came, like George Bush father”, tells Mr. Arjola, by adding that the last three Finnish presidents are members of the club.

He is interdict to make of the policy in the sauna, announces Mr. Arjola, but he recognizes that it is quite difficult to avoid the subject. However, heat does not come from the exchanges from point of view, but from the coal which burns in the stove.

Everyone is there to rest and forget reality for a time. And even the Heads of State are held of completely naked beings in the sauna.

The club is of architecture rustic and contains a dozen saunas all a little hotter than the precedent. You thus pass from one sauna to the other by increasing each time the temperature.

Between each sauna, you must leave outside and plunge in ice-cold water of the gulf. An extraordinary feeling.

The final key
The last sauna is probably the best. One finds a part with a hearth there where one is useful to you of the beverages, that is to say beer, wine or a soda. One can to also be used a sausage bratwurst or a sandwich you for smoked salmon, as well as a dessert before you do not find the external world for good.

“We encourage people to eat and drink something, explains Marianna, the hostess of the places. You lose much salt in a sauna.” And much of toxins too. “That cleans you the pores. You feel in a formidable state when you leave, adds Mr. Arjola. And then you are in a hurry to return.” It is like that when one has passion.