Tampere Rauhaniemi, Finland
Tampere Rauhaniemi
Dubbed the best sauna experience in Finland, Tampere Rauhaniemi offers visitors the most traditional sauna experience the country has to offer, complete with ice swimming.Tampere Rauhaniemi is a public sauna, surrounded by the country's 
beautiful countryside.
The site's large sauna accommodates up to 70 people and despite a smaller sauna being available, actually provides the hotter temperature. The saunas even use traditional methods with water being poured on hot local rocks producing crisp, healthy steam.
Of course sitting in the sauna and then going outside can be quite a shock to the system considering the drastic change in temperature, especially if you are then going to go ice-swimming. The area luckily has electrically heated mats to keep the feet of visitors warm from the snow and ice in the area upon leaving the sauna.
You may be wondering who would want to throw themselves into icy water and what the benefits are, but for centuries the Finnish have been going from a hot sauna to rolling in the snow or swimming in icy waters to shock their system. Finns also do this repeatedly, going into the sauna and then into icy water up to three or four times!
As you'd expect the best time to go is during the winter season, when the water is not just at its coldest but the area is at its most picturesque. As you would imagine, due to the popularity and the effectiveness of the saunas, Tampere Rauhaniemi continues to be one of Finland's most popular saunas.
back to Best Saunas Guide.
