Normal service has been resumed!

Ice creams in Jyväskylä this morning.
In the centre of the city.
Coffee time in the centre.
Strawberries, picked this morning, at lunchtime, back in the cottage.
After the rain yesterday, and no swimming in the lake or heating of our sauna, we were back to normal today!

This morning though, we went in to Jyväskylä to have a look around the centre of the city. With more than 100,000 people living there, it's one of Finland's bigger cities, and it's about 9 miles from where we are staying. The centre is pedestrianised which means there are lots of people walking around the main street, which has loads of cafes, restaurants and pubs, as well as all the well-known shops here. We bought some books in a bookshop, which had a large selection of English titles, and had coffees and ice creams before walking towards the harbour area and back again.

Back at the cottage for lunch, I began to heat the sauna once again. On Sunday when we arrived, I found it quite tricky to get this sauna up-and-running, and it was a similarly frustrating few minutes again today before it all went smoothly- but it was definitely worth the effort. Within an hour of starting, we were sweating it out in temperatures of 90C, in what is really a superb all round sauna. It's wood burning- see the photos below- but it is also large, with a dressing room attached to it, where you can take your towels, swimming goggles etc. It also has a small shower inside the sauna itself, which pumps water directly from the lake itself. In all our visits to Finland, we had never seen this arrangement before, but wow- what an experience it is to allow the cold water to flow over your body inside a room at 90C! Exquisite...and then of course, you just step outside and dive into the lake again!
How to make the perfect sauna- step 1- collect your birch wood.
Step 2- light the wood and tend it in the sauna stove, until it's burning well and the sauna is heated to at least 60C. Then sit in and begin to sweat!
Step 3- above and below- jump into the lake and enjoy the refreshing coolness of the water. Then repeat as often as you wish to!

It's MAGICAL!!



Yee Haaa!! Who needs London 2012?

We sat in the sauna, sunbathed on the jetty, returned to the sauna and jumped into the lake repeatedly for a good two to three hours- and I can honestly say that this place is the nicest we have stayed at in all our visits to Finland. The lake is superb! Although the water is not as warm as it was the last two years when we stayed in eastern Finland, this lake really has got it all. There's loads of wildlife around, the jetty is great for sunbathing, the lake itself is deep enough to dive into from the jetty, and the cottage itself is just beautiful. We all agree it's a place we'd love to return to.