Palvajarvi 2018: Day 9 - The Hottest Yet

Wednesday 18 July 2018

Day 9 - The Hottest Yet

Last night's trip to Lahti and back went smoothly enough, and we arrived there at 8pm, in good time for the train to St Petersburg, which was due to leave from Lahti at 8.47pm.
While having teas in the cafe though, messages appeared on the noticeboard informing us that due to the Trump - Putin summit and all the associated traffic chaos, the train driver had been held up from getting to work, and therefore the train itself would be late! As Olivia needed to be picked up from Timo's house at 11pm, we had to set off back for home. Anna's folks eventually left Lahti at 9.38pm, a bit later than planned!

Today we had the hottest day for a long time here. The temperature headed up to 30C before 11am and continued to rise right up to 32.4C here by early afternoon. It was great after a longish lie in just to breeze along to the shops with Keith and Anna first thing, then simply relax for the rest of the day. The lake temperature this afternoon confirmed what we all thought, that it's warmer still and indeed it was 28C, not seen on our holidays for many years. On the side of this blog, there is a photo from 2010 showing similar temperatures on a thermometer, and I've had various discussions with folk who can't believe lakes here so far north could be so warm. Well, they can be, as today shows!
And guess what. The weather is to continue as is, for the next few days at the very least!

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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.