This weekend we did a road trip to Ruissalo, Turku with a group of friends to celebrate the birthday of one of us. Our destination was Sauna Obscura in Saaronniemi Beach. It's a floating sauna building with a wood-heated stove (or kiuas, as we call a sauna stove in Finnish), so you either have to take a boat there or even better, swim. What makes it extra special is that the sauna has two holes on its opposite walls, covered with a lense. Thus the sauna works like a giant box camera, or a camera obscura, projecting an upside-down image of the sea and the archipelago on the walls and the skin of the people bathing inside.
We were lucky to have very nice weather, and thus a clear picture. Naturally we all swam in turns to a suitable spot outside the sauna and waved to our friends inside - some of us even did all the water tricks they knew. :) The sauna was a thoroughly delightful experience. You could feel the gentle waves of the Baltic sea while looking at sun playing on its surface in the sauna ceiling. Once you got hot, you could just step outside and jump into the sea to swim a for a while. Why can't every sauna be like this?!
To go with the theme of our surprise excursion, I made a bath/sauna gown as a present to the friend who we were celebrating. The model was taken from my mother's old sauna gown from the 1970s, I changed the colour though from bright orange to cream white. The birthday girl was very happy with both the surprise journey and her new garment. This was definately one of the best days of this summer!
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