Current location: Koli, Finland
11.11am, Hiking. Our day started with an amazing breakfast that included a chocolate fountain (I felt the need to indulge in it, as it's definitely not something I've ever had for brekkie before!). Then we met our (soon-to-be-new BFF) Katerina, who arrived to take us hiking. We stepped out into the snow and made our way up a hill to an incredible lookout over the lake 800m below. The lake is kilometres wide and has thousands (literally) of islands dotted through, that in the summer visitors can swim or paddleboard or sail between. However, in the winter it's completely frozen — it looked so beautiful, like a christmas postcard. Our hike was through some pretty deep snow (or so I thought until we decided to go on a snowshoeing adventure) and saw the most amazing sights. There's even a tiny outdoor 'church', which consists of a cross, an altar and a bench, which is where Katerina got married... What a setting!
After a big walk, we decided to spend the next couple of hours snowshoeing to Katerina's teepee. We strapped on our snowshoes (like mini snowboards) — don't tell my physio — and began journeying through the snow fields. It was incredible. I was absolutely blown away by the beauty, the silence, the snow, the sights, the teeny cabins that dotted the trail, the elk and Lynx footprints, the cold. It was awesome! We arrived after a while to the teepee, where Katerina's pet reindeer were, of course. What a christmas fairytale. In the teepee was a fire, where Katerina made us salmon soup (a Finnish specialty) and coffee. We also ate Karelian, a Finnish savoury pastry served with egg butter, and lingonberry juice. Every new experience just blew my mind more, I loved it so much.
As the sun started to go down (about 3pm!) and the afternoon wore on, we made our way back to the hotel and decided to spend the afternoon at the spa. This spa was unlike any I'd been in before... When you arrive, you get a pail of beauty products, with instructions of when and where to use them all (such as a face mask to put on before you go into the fire sauna), and a drinks pail with a bottle of wine in it to enjoy in the outdoor hot tub as snow falls around you.
The spa had so many different elements, such as foot baths, three different saunas, a light and music pool where you could hear Finnish classical music under the water, and ice pools...brrr. There are 'paths' to follow depending on the type of spa experience you're after, which tell you what order to visit each pool etc in. We followed 'Rejuvenating', which involved a lot of saunas and relaxing moments, unlike 'Refreshing', which had quite a lot of cold pool elements! However, We ended with a 'Kolin Kuohu' shower, which is essentially a bucket of ice water poured on your head. At the end, you go into a room with heated stone seats that face out onto the mountain, to eat gingerbread and drink Glögi. Ridiculous.
We were feeling so bliss end out and so overjoyed at the best day ever, and we still had dinner to come! In the restaurant we dined on reindeer steak (which felt slightly mean after bonding with Katerina's reindeer today!) and snails, then decided to go out for a final wall in the dark. It's funny, it doesn't actually get that dark because of all the snow, but I was still a bit scared a bear or Lynx would emerge from the darkness! We didn't get to see the northern lights (although the day before we had seen them from the taxi!) but as I said to Andy, we couldn't have dealt with seeing them... The day had been too perfect, I actually would have thought it was a dream if we'd ended with them, ha! One of the most amazing days of my life for sure.
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