life on the slow lane in finland
Explore life on the slow lane. Take a trip to the unknown – the safe kind – where time stops and all you have is birds chirping at sunrise and waves softly lapping at sunset. Sounds like a paradise? It is, bar some mosquitos and lack of life’s “little” luxuries, or not so little – depends how you see the lack of running water, toilet, and sometimes even electricity….
This paradise is called the Finnish countryside – that northernmost country with hundred thousand lakes and over half a million cottages by those lakes, rivers and seaside coastline. When summer comes, particularly July, this whole country retreats to their cottages to live their lives the same way their great-grandparents did: in the middle of nature, away from neighbours and those big-city amenities.
As the Finnish summer nights are short, the need to light and electricity isn’t that crucial and cooking is mostly done outside on a wood-lit fire pit – preferably enjoying own catch of fresh fish and stuff…Sounds a bit too much? Maybe it does, but one needs to live to really experience and understand what living with the nature means – and you’d be surprised how much you might enjoy it!
We don’t have a cottage of our own, but I’ve yearning for years to buy one. meanwhile we get our nature fix by visiting friends cottages and did so for a few nights this year also. We had our Spanish au pair with us and I was frankly a bit worried about how she’d feel, but she absolutely loved the whole experience of fishing at the dock, rowing on the lake, learning old sauna customs such as stimulating your blood circulation by beating your muscles with fresh birch branches, not seeing any other people on the beach, or even the lake and having no background noise of traffic, planes and other city sounds: that’s totally unique and different.
She might not have been so excited about the standalone natural “toilet” facilities, but life seldom is perfect (and you can find luxury cabins with all the comforts, and I’ll confess sort of liking having them too)…So let me introduce you the life on the slow lane in pictures; sun, swimming, sunsets, fishing, rowing and a bit of champagne too…
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