Planetskier: Sauna in Hotel Merihovi

Kemi. Never been, but what a nice surprise! Nice, walkable center, boat harbors, nice restaurants, ... and a nice historic hotel, the Hotel Merihovi. We visited the sauna upon arrival, having been in the outback for a week by this time :-)

The hotel was built after the war, building started in 1946. Visitors in the hotel include the long-term president of Finland, Urho Kekkonen, and the first man in space, Cosmonaut Juri Gagarin. See more about the history of the hotel here.

Single rooms were 99€ in August, booked few hours before arrival. Great breakfast. Kemi was surprisingly empty though, for the time of the year. The schools have not started yet, one would have assumed there's more tourists around. Maybe they need to discover Kemi.

The hotel sauna had a dressing room, a lounge (pictured above), shower room, and the sauna. Sauna was quite good. There were other people so I did not take a picture this time from the inside.

The hotel also has even better saunas for private parties. I did not try them, the one we used was the one for all hotel guests, the Jukola's Sauna (Jukolan sauna).

Sauna sign and lounge:

Kemi also has a swimming hall, which wasn't open at the late evening time we where there:

The top picture in this article is the cottages at the harbor. More pictures from the harbor:

They also have a sailing club for the workers. With a nice restaurant, the only one open after 9pm :-)

Here's a picture of the boats in sunset, and the club sign.

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and

This article was originally published in the Planetskier Blogspot article series.