Helsinki, finland

Marshall and I have been itching for another European trip, just the two of us. This time we landed on visiting Helsinki, Finland and touring the Amalfi Coast in Italy! Marshall’s mom was excited to fly in from Florida to come hang out with the boys for 10 days while we’re gone (Thank you!!). The boys were super excited to spend a lot of time with her and show off their skills at their baseball games and taekwondo.
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We left on a Friday around 7pm to take a 9-hour red-eye from Seattle to Helsinki. Normally I can sleep on planes, but unfortunately neither of us got a minute of sleep. Just wonderful! By the time we arrived, it was 2pm Finland time since they are 10 hours ahead. After a 30-minute taxi ride to the historic downtown area, we arrived at our Lapland Hotel. It’s a boutique hotel with traditional Finnish decor including lots of sheepskin and reindeer antlers. Our hotel room was awesome! It had a luxurious spa-like bathroom with a huge steam sauna that you pour water over rocks to get scorching hot. 

Although we had a sauna in our room, we just had to check out a traditional Finnish public sauna that is a super popular thing to do in Finland. We hopped on a couple of electric scooters and rode over to the famous Kotiharjun sauna which is the only remaining wood burning sauna in Helsinki.

When we arrived, there were around 10 sweaty local men with towels wrapped around their waist cooling off outside the front door. They all stared at us when we walked in as we clearly were not locals. After we paid, Marshall and I went to our separate locker rooms to strip down. The men and women have separate saunas and clothing is forbidden. This is waaaaay outside of my comfort zone!
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The women’s locker room was empty, so I decided to sneak my cell phone into the sauna to take pictures of this unique experience. There was nobody in there so I quickly snapped some pictures of the giant wood burning stove and took some selfies to prove to my friends back home that I actually sat in the sauna butt naked (nobody believed I would!). Within a few minutes a women walked in with her towel wrapped around her so I wrapped my towel around me too so she didn’t feel awkward. She was from Sweden and we spent the whole time just chatting about our various travels. The sauna was well over 200 degrees so I only lasted about 15 minutes before I had to get outta there.

Meanwhile, when Marshall walked into the men’s sauna, there were already two guys in there and Marshall realized he was the only one who brought a towel in. The others were sitting on wood blocks just letting their balls hang out. Yikes! Marshall walked up to the top row and sat down to enjoy a true Finnish sauna experience and relax. Next thing he knows the ten guys that were sitting outside all came in at the same time, minus their towels. They all grabbed their own wood block to sit on and spread out to find a spot with a bit of elbow room to sweat it out. Except for the biggest, most tatted dude there who decided to sit right next to Marshall. The top row is by far the hottest area and they were both soaked in sweat in minutes. Marshall just sat there minding his own business when the guy next to him got a little too sweaty and decided to shake off like a wet dog and sprayed Marshall’s entire left side with Finnish dude sweat. Gaaa-rosssss!

The guys kept pouring water on the hot coals making the sauna ridiculously hot. Marshall challenged himself to not be the first one out, plus he didn’t know the etiquette of leaving a sauna (Take the wood board with you? What line do you take so your butt/junk doesn’t pass by the wrong dude?), so he waited about 20 minutes before someone left and he followed the guy out. As he was walking back to his locker, he passed by a few older gentlemen just hanging out in the locker room playing chess and drinking beer, nodding at everyone as they passed. This place was quite the experience!!

We scootered back to our hotel to get ready and head to dinner. We were exhausted from the non-sleep for the last 48 hours and wanted to get a quick bite then head to bed. The restaurant we went to called Hoku was inside of a shopping mall but had a great view of the busy courtyard below. We had fun people watching as we enjoyed our dinner. Luckily, we didn’t faceplant into our food from exhaustion and got back to the hotel around 7pm to immediately hit the hay.

That night I woke up at midnight and could not go back to sleep. Grrrr! I’m someone who needs a solid 8 hours so the 4 hours I got was a bit rough. Luckily our room had an espresso machine so we started our morning off with a fresh espresso shot before heading down to breakfast. Our hotel had the most amazing breakfast buffet we’ve ever had in any of our travels. They had a huge spread of local cuisine including their award-winning porridge, reindeer sausage and an array of fresh baked breads, pastries, and delicious smoothies.
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The activity we had planned for the day was to explore Suomenlinna Island which is an inhabited sea fortress comprised of 8 islands. We hopped on a quick 15-minute ferry ride over to there. There are several trails that lead to various historical and scenic sights around the islands. We had no real agenda so just picked a random trail to start walking along to check out the sights. As we were strolling, we accidently got deep into the residential part of the island and we passed by a woman walking her….CAT!....on a leash! But why?? We then stumbled upon a section of the island that had several hobbit-like structures, some of which we could walk through. So cool! We eventually made our way to a café on one of the islands called Cafe Bar Valimo that was off the beaten path next to the locals’ dock. We both ordered pasta dishes that were super flavorful as we watched the boats and seagulls go by.

After wrapping up lunch, we hopped back on the ferry back to Helsinki. There is a public market right next to the dock, so we meandered through there on a mission to find a Finland Christmas ornament to add to our collection of ornaments from around the world. We quickly found the perfect one and moved on to check out some nearby vintage clothing stores. Marshall and I thought it would be fun to have a competition to see which one of us could come up with the most ridiculous outfit. I found a mickey mouse T-shirt, a colorful 80’s jacket, some bright red men’s track pants and a cowboy had with corks hanging all around the brim. Marshall found bright yellow jacket, neon green pants, a hideous flower tie and a kid-sized fedora hat. According to our Facebook friends, Marshall won the competition. Dang it, I gotta step up my game next time!

By this point we were ready to check out a cool cocktail bar I had researched called Liberty or Death. It was cozy inside with leather couches and American hip hop playing for us to jam out to. The bartender made us some delicious custom cocktails that were super refreshing. We were planning to go to dinner afterwards but we were both pretty tired and jet legged so we decided pizza in the room sounded more relaxing. As we were walking back to our hotel, we strolled through a park that had random graves scattered throughout. There were people picnicking literally right next to headstones. Very strange to us, but maybe that’s normal here? The Finnish people are extremely nice and very helpful, but that was one question we kept to ourselves.
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Back in our room, we did another sauna session to wind down. We loved the sauna so much, we used it 5 times in two days, lol. We highly recommend the Lapland Hotel as it’s in the heart of the city, has a traditional Finnish vibe, and the coolest in-room saunas. Overall, Helsinki was a great cultural experience and are glad we chose this stop on our way to Italy.
Next stop: Capri, Italy