Finnish Design Sauna Löyly: Wellness in Helsinki | Review

Review of a Gay Couple Finnish Design Sauna LÖYLY Helsinki experience – A visit to Finland wouldn’t be perfect without sweating in a Finnish Sauna, at least once. Next to all the public saunas all around the city, in May 2016 Helsinki got a new design attraction: the “design-sauna-experience” LÖYLY. And of course, we as sauna fans were excited to start our Saturday morning with a two-hour stop on the peninsula Hernesaari in the southeastern part of Helsinki. Do you know what Löyly actually means? We asked the friendly staff of the Löyly sauna. Löyly literally means “the steam that comes when you throw water on hot stones in a sauna”. And isn’t that what it is all about in a Finnish sauna?Join us on our Helsinki-Sauna experience and get sweaty in the Finnish Design Sauna LÖYLY Helsinki through a couple of men‘s eyes.

Design Sauna Löyly in Helsinki

This relaxing, gay-friendly hotspot with several saunas like a traditional smoke sauna is completely heated by firewood collected in the woods of Finland. Especially the morning hours at Löyly sauna are less busy and a great way to start a day during a gay city trip to Helsinki, in our case, for Helsinki Gay Pride. After all the sweating, we cooled down by swimming in the open water of the Gulf of Finland and enjoyed the view over the bay with a good Finnish breakfast from the rooftop terrace. Interesting for us gay travel bloggers is that Finland has 3,3 million saunas for 5,4 million Fins. Although the need for public saunas is raising as part of the new urban culture, the numbers of public saunas are decreasing.

The Finnish sauna Löyly designed by the Finnish architect office Avanto Architects became literally one of the new hot spots of Helsinki. The extraordinary design was created by wood material from responsibly managed forestry while the heat and electricity are produced by water and wind power, except for the firewood heated three saunas. With this strict concept, the sauna of Löyly became the first FSC-certified building in Finland and second in Scandinavia (FSC = Forest Stewardship Council promoting responsible management forests).

Sauna & Restaurant in an FSC-certified building

Löyly is created for foreign visitors to experience a real Finnish sauna, less than two kilometers from the city center of Helsinki. Therefore, at Löyly are 3 different saunas. All of them are wooden heated but in different ways. A continuously heated one, a once-heated sauna (that stays warm all day after being heated in the morning), and a smoke sauna. Following the information from Löyly, this traditional smoke sauna is a true rarity in an urban sauna culture, even in Helsinki. In between the different sauna times, Löyly offers its visitors a spa area with cold water basins, a fireplace room to relax with a drink in.

If you are brave enough, like we were, jump into the cold water of the sea. After our time in the sauna part of Löyly, we had a delicious lunch in the “soft minimalism” restaurant, that serves organic food and sustainably caught fish. Good to know, that you cannot make a reservation. Our favorite spot of Löyly is the rooftop terrace on top of the wooden design architecture. If you want to do it like the Finnish do: order an original Finnish long drink (Gin and Grapefruit) and you will understand why the Finnish people love their sauna tradition.

More Blog Articles about Helsinki:

• Activity Tip: Have fun at Helsinki’s Theme Park Linnanmäki >
• All you need to know about a Gay Couple City Weekend Helsinki >
• Our best Photos of the Helsinki Gay Pride Festival >
• Happy Pride Season! All about our Gay Pride Trips around the World >
• Plan your trip with our Reviews of gay-friendly Hotels worldwide >