Palvajarvi 2018: Day 8: Back to Lahti

Monday 16 July 2018

Day 8: Back to Lahti

Another day in paradise with ridiculously high but fantastically enjoyable temperatures today.
It's been more than 30C most of the afternoon, and I'm writing this earlier than usual as we have a 200 mile round trip this evening to take Anna's folks back to Lahti before we run back up the road again afterwards.
We set off at 6.00pm and their train leaves at 8.47pm, so hopefully we will be home by around 11.00pm.
Olivia will stay here as she's going trampoline training with Timo, the owner's daughter at her club, for the second year running. This is extremely kind of them, especially as it wouldn't happen back in Scotland for all sorts of health and safety reasons that are too silly to go into. Anyhow, she will have great fun once again at a sports hall that is so well resourced with unbelievable equipment that it truly makes us look like a third world country!
Last night, after the World Cup final we headed into Jyväskylä Harbour area for ice creams in the intense evening heat. At 9pm it was still 28.5C, incredible temperatures indeed!
That's it for today, more tomorrow.

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2018 will be the 12th anniversary of our first trip to Finland in 2006, when we first ventured to, and fell in love with this wonderfully beautiful and tranquil Nordic country.

This will be our 11th summer visit to this hidden gem of a country in the far north of Europe.

We fell in love with Finland in 2006 when we stayed at Santalahti Holiday Resort in the southern town of Kotka. We were back in 2008, flying to Helsinki, then staying in both Kotka and Varkaus, around 300 kms north east of the capital city. This gave us our first taste of the lakeland areas inland, and we loved swimming in the beautiful warm lakes!
In 2010 we returned by car from Scotland in a heatwave to the areas close to Juva and Puumala, renting our first cottages by lakes that were incredibly warm to swim in. After such fantastic weather in 2010, we had high hopes of the same in 2011, and incredibly, we were again very lucky to have a real heatwave! We stayed in two cottages close to Juva again, and fell further in love with the tranquil solitude you experience in this spectacular lakeland area.
By 2012, we wanted to try some new areas and cottages, so we planned a 24 day holiday, staying for a week in three different cottages as well as staying in a beautiful Helsinki aparthotel for 3 nights. It was lovely to discover the eastern town of Parikkala, as well as the western town of Ruovesi, and in between, we stayed for a week in what has become our firm favourite cottage of all our trips, close to Jyväskylä. We loved our stay on Lake Palvajarvi so much in 2012, that we returned to the same cottage again in 2013 and 2014 for two weeks, as well as in 2015. In 2016, we were back for our 5th year at what was definitely a real home-from-home! Then in 2017 it was time for our 6th year in a row at this lovely property!

Now, it seems we'd hardly want to go anywhere else, as in 2018, we return here again for the 7th year in a row!

Heating a Smoke Sauna

We've usually spent our time in wood-burning saunas while in Finland, but there is a different type of sauna that requires many hours of preparation, but which provides the "Rolls Royce" of sauna experiences once it's ready! Yes, the Smoke Sauna - and this short film describes the process for heating one! This year, after 10 years of wood-burning and electric saunas, we are going to try a Smoke Sauna for the first time, at the beautiful Taulu Manor which is only a short drive from our cottage.