Espoo Off The Beaten Path

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Here is poor and ugly places in Finland too. Everything is not clean and beautiful.
If you want to see different Finland, take a bus and make trip to suburbs.
Bus 150 from Helsinki will bring you here..

We stayed at the Radisson Hotel in Espoo. This is conveniently near the Espoo convention centre (once the student's union building). Just inside the convention centre is an indoor spit roast big enough to take an ox. I don't know if they still use it.

The immediate area is not all that exciting, but there is a nice coast with a road and path running alongside. Very open, with good clear light. Good for jogging, and I think the hotel hired bikes which would have been rally nice if we had time. We also walked from the hotel up the hill and into woods: these are OK, not special (but not everywhere has to be special).

Sauna is necessary. The dream is to have a sauna by the lake. I have illustrated my tip with the picture of our sauna, it is right by the lake. Usually in a sauna there are two rooms,a dressing room and the hot room. You also wash yourself there - naked.

From childhood Finns learn to bathe separately: small boys go to sauna with their fathers and girls are with mothers. Please note: a sauna is every mother's dream as the children will collapse of exhaustion afterwards...

Sauna traditions start from there: family ties become strong, secrets made and unfolded. In the privacy of sauna., as you are naked, it means you cannot hide anything.

Next, you sit down on the benches. They're not very hot and feel nice to your skin.
You may splash some water on yourself to feel better. The water used in sauna comes straight from the lake, buckets and buckets of it. Some heated for washing, some ice cold. Bathing in sauna may take any hours.

You have a ladle to throw half a cupful of water on the hot, heated stones.
The best sauna is the one heated with wood; make sure the ventilation is OK. A crack going under the door is a sign you're in a good sauna. The electrically heated version of sauna makes the air too dry and hot. The soft, hot, humid sauna in the countryside is sheer pleasure!!

Why do we beat ourselves with the bunch of birch twigs, very gently?The wet twigs,and birch leaves, have some oil in them that helps you to have a better circulation in your body. And if you have the tiny mosquito bites in your feet, you don't feel the itch to scratch the itching ones after the beating.
Bathing in sauna means sweating. Drinking is essential afterwards ; a beer or two. Getting drunk isn't the real thing and cold water is a good option.
After sauna is the perfect time to have a cup of coffee and one sweet bun, pulla. You're so relaxed; no wonder if you fall asleep. One thing is certain: you have left all your troubles behind you. Sauna is the best thing Finland has to offer for the rest of the world.

The Nokia headquarters building in Keilalahti was designed & built in 1997 by Pekka Helin and expresses the Finnish philosophy of building close to nature while using contemporary architectural languages – in this case of transparent glass and “smart” facades.

Nokia success story is also shown in the architectural expression of their new head office set in the natural surroundings of Keilalahti. High-tech architecture is beautifully set on the natural shores and is the first thing one sees when coming on the highway from Helsinki to Espoo.

Not only the buildings in Tapiola were set in a natural surroundings of woods but also the whole new town, as well as Espoo, are set in a natural surroundings of sea shores, lakes and natural woods. This offers great opportunities for outdoor activities – from hiking and cycling to swimming and sailing.
The area of Keilalahti is one of the such preserved natural environments, and what is striking, is the fact that it is located just between towns of Helsinki and Espoo, creating a green-blue buffer zone within the larger urban environment.

If you’re interested in modern architecture, then while in Tapiola a visit to university campus in nearby Otaniemi is a must. Alvar Aalto’s Main University Building from 1964 is a real landmark of the Helsinki University of Technology. University campus is set in a natural environment of the Otaniemi horn, on the eastern outskirts of Espoo. The focal point of the university centre is the auditorium building made in brick with staircase-like rows of windows looking like an amphitheatre from the outside.

You can walk to Otaniemi from the centre of Tapiola or take one of the buses from Tapiola Bus terminal.

For more info about Aalto's buildings, opening times etc check this website: http://www.jkl.fi/aalto/info/guide/index.htm

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Myllyjarvi is another of the hidden lakes around Espoo, this one is a really beautiful small lake actually in a small reserved and protected area in Espoo. Great place in the summer for a swim.