Tony Nicholls
Just over a month ago I was voted as a our company Employee of the quarter and in addition to this huge honour being given to me by my lovely workmates, I was also given some money to be spent on an experience of some sort.
As it happens I was about to get married just a few weeks after this award was handed to me, so it was suggested that I should take my now wife for a mini-honeymoon. And this is what I did! We decided we’d treat ourselves to couple of days in a spa in a small Finnish city called Hämeenlinna, in Spa Hotel Rantasipi Aulanko to be precise. The hotel itself had nice and spacious rooms (even though we only chose just the standard room) and with generous breakfast it met my high expectations for the standards that I get from Finnish hotels (I’ve been to quite a few European countries, and with roughly the same budget the Finnish hotels are easily the best value for money).
Included in the price of the room you also get unlimited use of the spa, which although it wasnt the biggest in the world, it had a nice selection of different kinds of pools and even three different types of sauna: a traditional Finnish sauna, steam room and a relax-sauna, as it was called, the only difference to the normal sauna was recorded bird noises playing in the background.
Hotel guests also get use of the sports facilities at Aulanko Areena which had a small but modern, and well-equipped gym. Obviously we also had our share of treatments! I can highly recommend the full body massage and Indian head massage. We spent a lot of time just sitting in the saunas, relaxing, and floating in the pools, but we also decided to try our luck with the stables next door and booked a horse riding lesson, which was great fun and not too expensive – and best of all, I survived this! My wife has actually owned a horse in the past, but I barely know which end is which!
I could go on forever about the visit, but the last thing I really want to mention is the legendary granite castle of Aulanko, 33 meters tall tower on top of a really high and steep hill, surrounded by beautiful Finnish nature
with a fairy-tale-like pond and everything.
To sum up: if you go there, stay at least for 3 nights as one full day and two halves isn’t nearly enough.
Shaz Manelli
