The secrets behind Finland's obsession with the sauna

Only if I were being freed from a furnace or a lava-spewing volcano, would I consider swimming in a Finnish lake on a chilly autumn night. “It’s very easy,” insists Johan, a ruddy-faced sauna regular who is attempting to explain the benefits of cold-water dipping while I shiver on a wooden deck.

The secret to surviving icy temperatures lies in finding some distraction, he claims. “Look at the lovely view; isn’t it wonderful?” he gasps, lowering himself into Lake Pyhajarvi and slowly easing into a breaststroke. “The bridge, the lights – aren’t they beautiful!” he keeps repeating, his face growing paler and teeth gritting harder with every word, leading me to wonder who’s he’s really trying to convince.

But Johan is right; there are plenty of distractions on offer at Saunaravintola Kuuma, which opened in June last year and is the latest hot house addition to Finland’s sauna capital of Tampere. 

Jutting from the quayside in the city centre’s Laukontori market place, Saunaravintola Kuuma is bathed in neon lights from surrounding bars and soundtracked by a hum of cosmopolitan chatter and high-spirited nightlife.

Above a skyline of red-brick factories, smoke coils from the few slender chimneys still in use, a reminder of the 19th century days when this southern inland city was the country’s powerhouse. The Tammerkoski rapids, created by a 60ft drop between neighbouring lakes, once fuelled a healthy cotton mill industry and they continue to roll smoothly just a five-minute walk from where I’m standing. You couldn’t get a more urban setting than this.

“Sauna is a very sociable experience,” explains Kuuma’s owner Ville Iivonen. “Young people want to visit with their friends, so mixed saunas – with bathing suits – are becoming much more popular.”

I switch between a traditional wood-heated and modernised smoke sauna – both with a water-side view – and I’m relieved to find temperatures are tolerable, swimsuits obligatory and beers can be ordered by buzzing the bar. An adjoining restaurant transforms the visit into a night out, with a New Nordic menu overseen by Finnish-American television chef Sara la Fountain. Living walls and soft leather booths characterise the modern but homely decor, while sharing dishes include slow-cooked lamb’s neck on a pillow of hummus and lingonberry porridge with a rose pepper crunch. 

Going to the sauna is a quintessentially Finnish experience; like doing the supermarket shop or refuelling the car, it’s a ritual of everyday life. Some older devotees even claim they were born in the sterile environment, and an old Finnish saying advises: Saunassa ollaan kuin kirkossa (one should behave in the sauna as you would in the church). 

According to Statistics Finland, there were two million saunas in 2017 for a population of five and a half million, mostly in private homes. Since the Second World War, public saunas have been in steady decline. Ville Virkki, an entrepreneur who opened Tullin, Tampere’s first urban sauna, in April last year, says: “I think we’ve lost our connection in this era of social media; we live inside our own bubbles.”

Describing saunas as a forum for healthy discourse, where political views, philosophical ruminations and general gossip can be shared, Virkki sees them as much more than a place for relaxation.

“It’s time we brought public saunas back to [the] city, where everybody is welcome and can easily enjoy the experience,” he says. “Sauna is the place where people from different backgrounds, cultures and social classes are all equal – and it is the place you can hear Finns speaking.” There are 35 public saunas in Tampere, more than anywhere else in Finland, and on May 21 last year, the Finnish Sauna Society and International Sauna Association awarded the city Sauna Capital status. Operating for many years, most of the wood-burning cabins are in leafier settings, including Rajaportti, Finland’s oldest sauna, where the announcement was made. 

Built in 1906, the simple block is tucked between restored wooden houses sloping along a tree-lined ridge in the protected Pispala neighbourhood, with views tumbling into Tampere’s leviathan lakes. 

Leaves fall like golden snowflakes as I hike along the road up to Pyynikki, one of two boreal forests bookending the city. As if sprinkled with glitter, the landscape glows with autumnal colours, a phenomenon the Finns celebrate as ruska: an admiration of natural splendour and a final chance to recharge the batteries before darker days kick in. Their poles stabbing at a shifting sea of crimson and ruby foliage, Nordic walkers form a brisk charge while slower-paced strollers rest on benches and listen to the flutter and crunch of the changing seasons. Wrapped with towels and clutching beer cans in their blotchy, swollen hands, the patrons sat in Rajaportti’s outdoor terrace are an intimidating sight when I arrive.

Like a tray of freshly baked pigs in blankets, their skin pops and sizzles in the cool evening air.

“We’ve got some good wood burning today,” hollers the cashier, peering from behind a Lilliputian serving hatch, bunches of birch twigs bristling either side of his gleeful face. Noticing bikini strings trailing from my canvas tote bag, he chuckles: “You won’t be needing those.”

Inside, men and women are segregated into two whitewashed stone caves, both heated by the original masonry stove that gorges on 3ft logs to generate a searing heat. There are no showers – just buckets of water – and in the absence of any swimwear fashions to determine the era, I could be lost in time. 

Not knowing where to look, I stare at globules of condensed moisture dripping from the walls, but no one can stay silent in a Finnish sauna for too long.

“I try to come here once a week,” slurs Sirkka, a busty Finn with a smile as broad as her body, who’s clearly been rehydrating with a couple of beers. “But every day is a sauna day!” she proclaims, raising her arms and grasping me in a sweaty, booby bear hug – every bit of my uptight British reserve wriggling to break free. 

Next door, men cheer as ladles of water are tossed on hot stones in displays of bravado, creating a fog of loyly – the affectionate term used to describe steam.

Eyes bulge from their sockets and veins dilate as blood pumps like a locomotive; improved circulation is one of the many health benefits of saunas being eagerly discussed. 

But along with heat, it’s the forest setting that has a restorative effect. 

With nearly three quarters of the country covered in woodland, Finland has a right to be proud of its spindly birches and drooping firs. Here, you can appreciate the change in seasons, and nothing tells that story better than trees; sprouting blossoms, frosted with snow or shedding leaves, they indicate a passage of time.

On the other side of the city, in the Kauppi forest, Kaupinoja sauna perfectly slots into that narrative. Reached by a trail matted with pine needles and curved by granite boulders softened with moss, a cluster of leafy sentinels guards the wooden cabin and a stairwell leads directly into the glassy, flat waters of Lake Nasijarvi. 

In the early morning, sunlight flares through semi-naked branches, casting shadows taller than the trees, and a scattering of fly agaric toadstools and tufty-eared red squirrels completes the fairytale scene.

Outside Kaupinoja, sausages sizzle on a grill seemingly manned by a Viking, wearing trunks and a pipa (sauna cap), who looks like one of the bangers ready to explode. 

Several sauna sessions under my belt, I feel like an expert, but only once inside the vast sweat temple do I realise there’s still so much to master.

Sitting on wooden pews worshipping an altar of steaming stones, men and women wear the same pained expression, blotchy skin tone – and, crucially, plastic shoes.

Staring down at my bare feet, I begin to feel blistering pain, and after hobbling across the room as if dancing on hot coals, I sprint into the icy lake.

I’ve finally found my furnace and learned a vital lesson: although heavenly, reviving and good for your soul, saunas can be sheer hell for the soles of your feet.

How to do it

Sarah Marshall travelled as a guest of Visit Finland (visitfinland.com). Finnair (020 8001 0101; finnair.com) flies from Heathrow, Manchester and Edinburgh to Helsinki with return fares from £107. Double rooms at Lapland Hotels (laplandhotels.com) start from €140pp (£123) per night with breakfast.

Do you share the Finns love of sauna? Tell us why in the comments section below.