Swedish Sauna Boat - Colorchallenge Friday Blue

It is well known that we love Sauna in Sweden. The word however originates from Finland. This picture is of a Sauna Boat that is located on the lake Möckeln which my dad lives next to. We know the owner and he has promised we will be able to use the Sauna this summer. Pretty cool feeling to cruise around and put the Sauna out in the middle of the lake and then enjoy some beer and swimming !

Some more history of the Sauna:

The Sauna as known in the western world today originates from Finland, but this is actually not really true. There are built-in saunas in almost every house in Finland and the oldest known saunas in Finland were made from pits dug in a slope in the ground and primarily used as dwellings in winter. The sauna featured a fireplace where stones were heated to a high temperature. Water was thrown on the hot stones to produce steam and to give a sensation of increased heat. This would raise the apparent temperature so high that people could take off their clothes.

The first Finnish saunas are what nowadays are called savusaunas, or smoke saunas. These differed from present-day saunas in that they were heated by heating a pile of rocks called kiuas by burning large amounts of wood about 6 to 8 hours, and then letting the smoke out before enjoying the löyly, or sauna heat. A properly heated "savusauna" gives heat up to 12 hours.

Saunas were common all over Europe during the Middle Ages. Due to the spread of syphilis and subsequent scare of the disease in the 1500s, the sauna culture died out on most of the continent. Finland was a notable exception to this due to the epidemic not taking a strong hold in the area, which is a key reason why the sauna culture is nowadays largely perceived as Finnish.

As a result of the Industrial Revolution, the sauna evolved to use a metal woodstove, or kiuas [ˈkiu.ɑs], with a chimney. Air temperatures averaged around 75–100 °C (167–212 °F) but sometimes exceeded 110 °C (230 °F) in a traditional Finnish sauna. When the Finns migrated to other areas of the globe they brought their sauna designs and traditions with them. This led to further evolution of the sauna, including the electric sauna stove, which was introduced in 1938 by Metos Ltd in Vaasa . Although the culture of sauna nowadays is more or less related to Finnish culture, the evolution of sauna happened around the same time both in Finland and the Baltic countries sharing the same meaning and importance of sauna in daily life, shared still to this day. The Sauna became very popular especially in Scandinavia and the German speaking regions of Europe after the Second World War. German soldiers had got to know the Finnish saunas during their fight against the Soviet Union on the Soviet-Finnish front of WWII, where they fought on the same side. Finnish hygiene depended so exclusively on saunas, that they had built saunas not only in mobile tents but even in bunkers.. After the war, the German soldiers brought the habit back to Germany and Austria, where it became popular in the second half of the 20th century. The German sauna culture also became popular in neighbouring countries such as Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

This is my photo submission for colorchallenge Friday Sky blue !

Hope you have an awesome weekend :)

(Source: wilipidea)