May turns on the melting slope

May ski turns on the melting local ski hill, some snow still left despite the early spring. Also a visit to the smoke saunas in Kuusijärvi that were empty due to the May Day.

Much of the snow on the Kauniainen ski hill has been stored again for next year, but some is left outside the covered pile as well. It is quickly melting, but even on the upper part there is enough to ski several turns. There's a thicker snow cover near the bottom, but that was further away from where I parked, so I skied the upper one. It was also steeper :-)

Probably not enough to stay for June, however.

This place has of course been my go-to-place for many, many years for May 1st ski runs. See for instance year 2011, 2012, 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021, 2023, and 2024.

Video:

Grani:

Kuusijärvi:

Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! Photos, videos, and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. Photos in saunas and water have been taken when no one else was present.

Steigenberger Frankfurt Airport sauna & pool

I had an extra hour plus at the Frankfurt Airport, so instead of hanging around in the sorry Air France lounge (see another report), I decided to exit the airport and check out the spa the the Steigenberger hotel.

There's a nice and well lit pool, maybe 15 meters long (?). Then there's a separate sauna area, where there are two Finnish-style saunas (one hotter than the other one), one steam sauna, and showers. 

The cost to enter for non-hotel guests is high, €, but worth it :-)

I used a taxi to get to the hotel, though it turned out that it would have been easily walkable, too. And the taxis charged plenty, because they felt like they need to get big bucks from any airport rides, sigh. Oh well. I had a nice time at the spa! Much recommended.

It was quite challenging though to figure out which of the hotels around would actually take non-guests to their spas, most didn't. I'm glad Steigenberger did though!

More information here, here, and here.

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. No photos were taken inside the facility, the photo above from the pool is taken from the Steigenberger website, and retains their copyright and rights

Lufthansa business class upgrade for 55€

Sometimes the flight upgrades can be caught at a reasonable price. I got an offer for an upgrade to business class on a short Lufthansa intra-European flight, for only 55€. Took it. Got a nice meal and space for it, when tourist class would have been packed. 

At a different flight, when returning, I struggled to get the same upgrade. There was an offer for 110€ which I wanted, but it always failed upon payment. Of course the Lufthansa systems were at fault, they couldn't see upgrades expect at the check-in by this time, just before flight. But why wouldn't the offering web application know this? Sigh... lots to improve in airline IT systems :-) 

And, since I had combined two flights, my earlier flight was on Finnair. I turned out that I had been voluntarily upgrade by Finnair, one of the rare (3-4 times out of thousands). Nice!

Lufthansa, the lounge in Frankfurt and the meals:

On a later flight this is what I got:

Finnair:

For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. 

DUFRY Business Club lounge in Belgrade

 

Since I had an upgrade on Lufthansa, I got access to another lounge, this time at the Belgrade airport. The DUFRY Business Club. Small but semi functional, and not too packed.

The lounge is one of the two (I think) lounges at the airport, the other one being for Air Serbia.

There are (limited) drinks and some sandwiches at the lounge.

The main downside is that there are no bathrooms in the lounge, they are just around the corner but unwelcoming/busy/in bad shape. 

Somewhat odd rules, or maybe it is odd that they feel they have to have such rules:

For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. 

Air France Lounge @ Frankfurt Airport

Sigh. Not the greatest lounge. Crowded. Yes there is power and seats are ok, and there's some food. But this lounge is far too overused, so it is always packed -- and several times I have had to wait outside for a permission to come in later. 

But, it is the only lounge for Finnair in Frankfurt. Lufthansa would have more options (but they too have some issues).

For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. 

Swimming at the Imperial Palace

The Imperial Palace ... and a swim at their Crystal Spa. Even from the names you can tell that this is a high-level experience. The Palace is the highest end hotel in Annecy, and it is by the lake. It is a nicely renovated classic building from 1912. Even the smallest rooms can run up to 700 € per night at busy times, though we stayed here for much less, on a very nice day but with less crowds. Crystal Spa is their spa facility. Much recommended!

The spa has a Finnish sauna, a Turkish bath, and a nice glass-walled pool with water jets on one end. There's also relaxation areas and multiple different showers, an ice pile to rub yourself with some nice cool ice pellets, etc.

I liked their special showers quite a bit, with misty rain and color lights. But my favourite was the sauna, it was just the right temperature and materials for a Finnish sauna. Not too mild, not too hot, nicely warm wood on the seats and on the back support, could lay down on your towel if you want, etc.

The pool looked spectacular of course as you can see from the photos, but it was also warm, so you didn't feel like having to take a cold plunge when getting in, like it sometimes is in other hotel pools. Warm is good!

The windows from the spa area are directly towards the park and the lake, you feel like you are in the nature already.

A time slot needs to be booked at the spa to get there, even if you are a hotel guest. The slots are one hour long, I think, and you can choose to get either a slot where kids are or are not allowed in. A maximum of thirty people can come in at any one time.

Links: the hotel's own page, spa's page, 

City views:

The spa pool:

The sauna:

And here's a view from the hotel rooms on the side of the hotel. We had a partial view room, some rooms have city views and the best ones would have head-on view to the lake:

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of saunagoers or swimmers, all photos are taken when the facility is closed or empty, or photos are provided by the facility. In this case the photos 1, 5, and 6 were provided with permission by the hotel (with them holding all rights of course).

This "cave" will have to do this week

Business trip to Brussels, are there caves? Sadly, there are no caves in town, and I don't have enough free time in the evenings to venture outside. However, there's an intriguing thing in town: a copy of the famous Grotte de Lourdes from France. A chapel or a place of worship.

The "cave" is indeed man-made. It was was erected in 1913 by the Archbishop of Mechelen, Cardinal Mercier, and Father Swalus as the first parish priest. Contractors were hired to do the construction ... interesting.

And this isn't the only copy. Just around Brussels there are several. Then around Europe, North-America, and throughout the world. What's going on? It all comes to Grotte de Massabielle, located in Lourdes in Hautes-Pyrénées, France. But that cave is mostly known as the Grotte de Lourdes, a Catholic pilgrimage site.

The story goes back to 1858, when a 14-year old girl, Bernadette Soubirous said she saw 18 apparitions of Virgin Mary in the cave. Apparitions are supernatural appearances of a person or phantoms. Bernadette's statements sparked controversy and investigations and counter-investigations. Crowds gathered to attempt to witness the apparitions, city blocked access to limit the crowds, but Bernadette stood firm and stood by the barriers to the cave. 

Then, in 1862 the emperor allowed re-opening the access to the cave, and bishop stated that the church believed in what Bernadette had seen:

"We are […] convinced that the Apparition is supernatural and divine, and that, consequently, what Bernadette saw was the Most Holy Virgin"

Virgin Mary has since then be called "Our Lady of Lourdes", and several churches were constructed near the cave: the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception and Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary.

The events were well documented, and received wide attention. They also bear resemblance to other sightings of the Virgin Mary few years earlier, which also caused a lot of controversy in France. And of course, the Pyrenees have been a path for the pilgrims to travel through, and the interest in Virgin Mary has risen several times, as well as of course being promoted by the Catholic Church. The pope had recently spoken about immaculate conception, for instance.

In 1863, Marie-Elfride and Marie-Sabine de Lacour commissioned a statue for Our Lady of the Lourdes in a niche high up in the cave. The statue was created by artist Joseph-Hugues Fabisch. The statue is similar to what there is in Brussels, see the opening picture of this post.

Today, the grotto in Lourdes receives millions of visitors yearly. There's a large number of copies of the cave built around the world, on all continents. Just in Canada there are 72 Grottes de Lourdes! See the full list of copies here.

The original Grotte de Lourdes has been protected as a historic site since 1995.

Read more about the cave in Brussels from Wikipedia or the official home page. And about the Grotto of Lourdes also from Wikipedia or from the official visitor page.

The Brussels one is at the coordinates N 50.875570 E 4.337648, and the original Grotto de Lourdes is at N 43.097595 W 0.058708.

Photos:

Park where the cave is in:

Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. Photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko, except where otherwise indicated. All rights reserved. 

Thermae Grimbergen

(Photo by Thermae Grimbergen)

Thermae Grimbergen is in the outskirts of Brussels, I chose it as an affordable hotel for my business trip.  The Thermae looked like a regular hotel, and a small spa, split among multiple buildings. The entrance to the spa was downstairs past the reception in the main building, and I expected a usual basement spa experience. But, it turned out that the buildings were just a front to what was hidden behind: a lush garden with a pond, more than a dozen different saunas and endless relaxation spaces. You wouldn't think the city exists outside the garden.

The opening photo above is of the pond on the center of the garden in the spa. Water was quite nice, when I tried in the darkness of the evening.

The spa is independent of the hotel, anyone can visit the spa, and hotel guests also pay an entrance fee unless it is part of the package they signed up to. The entrance fees are quite reasonable, 34.90 or 32.90€ on weekends or weekdays, but if you enter after 5pm you get a 50% discount, leaving just a bit over 16 €. This is a bargain! And I didn't have a chance to visit during the day anyway, as I was in meetings in Brussels and coming back late in the evenings. 

There's two parts in the spa, the naked "Aquarius" side and the swimsuit side, "Sabai". Note that shorts -type swimming pants are not allowed on the Saibai side, men get your speedos ready :-) 

The Sabai side has two traditional saunas, one infrared, and one steam bath. There is an indoor-outdoor relaxation pool and two outdoor pools, plunge pools and a floating pool. Read more about the swimsuit side here.

The Aquarius side is larger, there's a total of ten saunas:

• The Celestite sauna
• The African Lodge sauna
• The Tibetan sauna
• The Kelosauna (built on kelos, naturally dried logs that are commonly used in the Finnish Lapland)
• Wood sSove sauna
• Herbal sauna
• Black Forest sauna
• Roman steam bath
• Cold sauna
• Tepidarium

My personal favorites were the Kelosauna and the Black Forest sauna. Both are also near the pond, which you can also dip into. But I probably liked them most for their closeness to the Finnish sauna experience which I'm so used to. Dry but hot... wood rather than tiles... and close to the nature. The Kelosauna is massive, could hold dozens and dozens of people. But late in the night I got it all to myself :-) 

There's also a champagne bath (a jacuzzi), another jacuzzi, and an indoor-outdoor swimming pool.

Read more about the Aquarius side here.

Thermae Grimbergen is 11.7 kilometers from the airport to the west, and also 11.7 kilometers from the city center to the north. It is located in the countryside village of Grimbergen, a nice village with a definite medieval twist. Roads passed through the area already in Roman times, and the first fort was built in the 8th century.

All in all, much recommended place to visit! I only wish I had more time to enjoy it -- need to come next time on a tourist trip and stay the full day, get relaxed :-) 

More photos of the Thermae below. 

First the hotel part. Here is where I stayed in, one of the hotel buildings, this one being on the street:

And this is the nightly view of the spa entrance itself (which is in a different building):

And in daylight:

Here's the kelosauna that I liked a lot, but all saunas were good:

(Photo by Thermae Grimbergen)

(Photo by Thermae Grimbergen)

And a view from my hotel room (this is a different pond than the one we swim in the spa):

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of saunagoers or swimmers, all photos are taken when the facility is closed or empty, or photos are provided by the facility. In this case, Thermae Grimbergen has graciously provided the photos 1, 5, and 6 above.

Unreliable luggage

I had a Samsonite hard case for couple of decades, but when the locking mechanism broke I ditched it and got a new modern Samsonite. Nice looking case, but ... unfortunately the quality wasn't what I was used in the previous Samsonites. The case broke on first trip, corner broken. Ok, perhaps the airline mistreated it but still..  then I got a new one on airline's cost. And another one later when it started having zipper problems. 

Then the third had also had zipper problems. And you can't fix the zippers, their repair facility can not fix those. Why??? What kind of sustainable operation is one where the most likely to break item can't be replaced?

I've been using them occasionally, but always taped to hold together, or with a rope binding the case together. Still, even if I can make the zippers close, I often find the zipper having come open after a trip. I can't rely on them for anything relevant, so I have to ditch them.

I'm an unhappy customer. Anyone have a recommendation for lightweight but durable cases?

For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. 

Kiuaskallio late session. Very late.

Visited my friends Duncan and Suvi near Jalasjärvi, and was surprised to find out that there's a ski hill. It was late April... they won't operate this late, but would there be any snow left? No ski resorts on my way here had any snow left.

And they did! A bit of iron content in the snow and ice that was left, but ok... snow is snow and ice is ice. I managed to ski in yet another Finnish ski resort, even if it was closed!

Seemed like a very nice ski resort by the way, modern and good looking restaurant building, a fire place cottage at the bottom... all good. And near the city center. Well done, Jalasjärvi!

The ski resort is at the coordinates N 62.506018 E 22.763923. The official pages are here.

Kiuaskallio was actually only my third option to ski. Duncan had told me that there was a nearby slope on a river canyon that was well shaded and he had seen it covered by snow just a few days ago. Unfortunately, it turned out to be almost melted now:

The second option was a snow dumping grounds in Jalasjärvi. No,  not on my good skis:

Finally, the Kiuaskallio. Suvi had told me that a local Facebook group had a post about there still being snow on the hill. Finally, a success :-)

It was only after doing all the skiing that I realized that there's also a gun range right next to the slopes. Luckily no one took me for target practice...

Skiing:

Grilling hut at the ski resort:

Signs:

Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko.