Travel Finland - Land of the Midnight Sun, Saunas and Sisu

Defying cliché, Finland is not populated only by Lapps and reindeer

Although Helsinki, the capital, is on the same latitude as Whitehorse, it enjoys warm summers that compare with those in London, Amsterdam and Brussels. An additional bonus is extended daylight hours around midsummer making it almost possible to read during the one-and-a-half hours of nocturnal twilight.

On my first night, my jet-lagged mind fought against sleep when the sky was still light over the dusky city. I was therefore relieved to find that the hotel had provided thick double-lined drapes which kept my bedroom inky black.

Popularly known as “the Daughter of the Baltic”, Helsinki lies equidistant from Stockholm and Leningrad and has a flavor of both eastern and western Europe.

When Helsinki became the capital of Finland in 1812, Czar Alexander I appointed a German architect to design a central square in the style of the one in St. Petersburg. The project was executed with such precision that the impressive and spacious Senate Square was able to effectively double for the Russian site in the movie Reds.

Helsinki successfully combines the old and the new. Neoclassical buildings stand next to contemporary designs, such as Finlandia Hall designed by the late Alvar Aalto. One of my favorites was the dramatic underground Temppeliaukio Church quarried from bedrock and topped by a 24-metre circular copper dome. From ground level it looked as if a spaceship had landed and buried itself in the main square. By contrast, the magnificent Uspensky Cathedral overlooking the harbor is built in the Byzantine-Slavonic style.

More than thirty per cent of the city is devoted to landscaped parks, and its leafy boulevards are a haven to the many dog-lovers and courting couples during the long twilight hours. One of the most notable parks is Sibelius Park, in which an impressive monument, made of hundreds of steel pipes, stands in honor of the Finnish composer, Jean Sibelius.

My favorite place for people watching was bustling Market Square where, amid a colorful medley of flowers and fruit, energetic vendors sell anything from fish to birch brooms.

From here visitors can take a boat trip to Seurasaari Open-Air Museum where a Finnish village has been transported from various parts of Finland and reconstructed.

For ritzy shopping, the most popular spots are Mannerheim Street and Esplanadi, a wide, tree-lined boulevard renowned for its fashionable and exclusive boutiques. Finnish handicrafts include Arabia porcelain, Finnish pine Aarikka tableware, and Iittala glass. Stockmann’s, Helsinki’s largest department store has a great selection of Lapponia Jewellery renowned for its fused gold and silver designs. I looked, I admired and kept walking.

Helsinki is surrounded by many picturesque seaside towns. The country’s former capital, Turku, was founded more than 770 years ago at the mouth of the River Aura. Its ancient cathedral has a star-vaulted ceiling completed in 1466, and many icons and tombs. My favorite place was the picturesque town of Naantali, just twelve kilometers west of Turku. The town, which dates from 1443, developed around the Convent of St. Brigitta until the Reformation in the 17thC.

Naantali would certainly have declined after the dissolution of the convent were it not for the resourcefulness of its residents. Everyone - young and old, men and women - had learned the craft of knitting socks from the nuns at the convent, and now they began to knit socks so assiduously that the town council had to ban the practice of knitting socks in lanes.

At its peak, Naantali exported more than 30,000 socks a year, thus ensuring a bright economic future. Visitors who want to travel further afield can take a mini-cruise to Stockholm in Sweden. The 15-hour route passes through a myriad of 30,000 forest-clad islands and barren skerries. The ships, like everything else in Finland, are wonderfully clean. Speaking of cleanliness, no one should leave this country without experiencing a sauna (pronounced “sowna” in Finnish). Saunas are a national obsession.

Over the years, the sauna has served as a birthing place, an operating room and as a place to cure meat. Today saunas are popular with hotel guests and this is where I had my initiation on returning home from a shopping trip. I followed directions to the top floor of my hotel where I was ushered by a white clad attendant into a spacious pine-scented room lined with wooden benches.

Her gesticulations indicated that I should remove my clothing. Just as I was wrapping myself in a huge soft white towel, a firm hand twirled me around and divested me of my modest covering. Unceremoniously, I was ushered into the sauna room where I sat steaming like a clam for a full ten minutes.

Occasionally the door would open and a hand would throw more water onto the hissing coals. Every time I tried to utter some protestation, the steam caught in my throat. At last, feeling like a limp strand of spaghetti, the door opened wide and I was shown into a shower where I was doused in ice cold water which I am sure must have been piped in from the northern Baltic.

Finally, I was lathered from top to toe with a rough, soapy loofah. Despite the shock to my system, I felt refreshed and was so glad it wasn’t wintertime when I would probably have had to cool off in an icy lake.

Perhaps this anecdote typifies the Finnish spirit, known as sisu, more than anything else. Sisu is an endurance and resilience that has enabled the country to maintain a delicate balance between East and West. And of this Helsinki can be proud.

Author: Caroline M. Jackson