Viiala's Devil's Nest

Nirsinkankaan Pirunkellari, in Viiala (Devil's Nest in Viiala) is a boulder cave listed in "Suomen Luolat" (the book of Finnish caves, by Kesäläinen, Kejonen, Kielosto, Salonen, Lahti). As I was visiting Tampere and drove back home on the highway that is near the cave, I wanted to drop by and see what the cave is about. A nice one!

The book lists the cave as being six meters long, although my opinion is that the length is 9 meters, based on the 3D model and just the main passage. (But one could also have counted a bit more for the upper entrance passage, maybe even the side one but I'm not sure there was enough space to crawl through.)

The coordinates for the cave are N 61.197814 E 23.813694.

As I arrived, I realized there's no way to park next to cave as the cave sits near a highway intersection, but there's parking at a nearby dance pavilion (link).

The cave is a passage through a large pile of rocks in the middle of a small forest. There's two main entrances and the passage kind of drops lower as you go through. The exit view from one of the main entrances is above, the entrance view from the other is below:

There's a bit of a tight spot to drop into the bottom part from the main entrance in the above picture, but otherwise there's plenty of room to move around. Here's the squeeze part:

The entrances themselves are easy. In addition to the main passage there's a passage to the top where you can also exit, and to one side. Here's the top entrance:

Unlikely many other boulder caves in Finland, there's certainly a cave feeling to this place, it does get dark and tight. Very nice.

A bit more information about the cave can be found in Wikipedia and Retkipaikka.

I also scanned the cave with my newly bought (used) iPhone 14 Pro, which turned to be a much better machine for taking 3D scans than my old iPhone 12 Pro, maybe the sensor is a bit better but what helps most is the amount of memory. I was always running out of memory on the 12, now there's more. FWIW, I considered buying also a newer iPhone, but from model 15 or 16 onwards they've changed the sensor, but with a challenging tradeoff: more range (up to 10 meters from the previous 5), but with reduced accuracy. I will probably get one of those at some point as well, but it will need testing to see how well it works.

Anyway, here's the model I scanned in GLTF format. You can rotate it on your browser screen here. And then I run my Cave Outliner software to get a plan view map and some cross sections. That map is available in high resolution PDF here. Below you will find some snapshots of the model and the map.

Other photos:

This article has also been published at Planetcaver.net here. 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. Photos and text (c) 2026 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Refurbished Tuusula Swimming Hall

The Tuusula swimming hall has been in renovations for a long time, a year? Now at the start of the summer 2026 it re-opened. Of course I had to visit!

Googling for it. And. yes, it did last for 14 months, as it started in April 2025 according to this article.

They repaired damages to the hall, and refurbished the saunas, washrooms, dressing rooms and the cafeteria. The hall is today in a very nice condition, it is pleasant to visit. Not that it was that bad earlier either, I didn't think there was major cause for concern. 

My previous visit here was here (alt. link).

This article has also been published at Planetswimmer.com here. Read the full series of sauna and swimming stories from planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool, or all blog articles from Blogspot. Photos and text (c) 2026 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. No photos of swimmers of saunagoers are included in these blog articles.

Stevnsfort's massive cold war bunker

On my trip to Copenhagen to ski (see separate article, alt. link) I also wanted to go underground. Sadly, Danish caves are in short supply, only on a remote island Bornholm. However, there are bunkers... while my visit first was going badly, it turned out to be a spectacular success! Not only did I get an in-person tour of the bunker, but I also got visit a secret sea shore beach from the bunker's under-the-cliff exit, and also got to see small sea caves!

I wanted to visit the Cold War museum at Stevnsfort, about an hour's drive south from Copenhagen. At first the visit was about to go wrong, as their bunker visit was only open for tours, and the next tour would leave so late that I wouldn't be able to get back to the airport in time.

However, probably seeing my desperation, they managed to come up with a personal tour just for me, with a super expert guide Stein. Thank you! 

We walked first on the surface to look at radars, guns and the general layout of the bunker. There's 2 kilometers of tunnels underground. The facility was built starting from 1953 and extended and used until the 2000s.

The bunker was both an intelligence gathering station for tracking foreign adversary's ships and communications, but also a defense facility with large underground guns, ammunition depots, and personnel facilities. The different parts of the underground tunnel network were connected by a long tunnel which then branched off in a different directions for various functions.

One of the tunnel branches led to the sea, opening up a door right at the bottom of the massive cliff facing the sea. This area is by the way known for the layered chalk- and limestone and a tiny darker layer in between, indicating the soot and ash from the meteorite impact 66 million years ago that likely killed off the dinosaurs. 

As we exited to the sea front, there was a small pier and a gravel beach few meters in front of the cliff. At the bottom of the cliff there were several areas that seemed to have smaller cavities, further out maybe even larger caves. But I was unable to exit the small beach area as the beach was protected by the cliffs reaching out all the way to the water.

Right next to the bunker exit was one of the small cavities under the cliff. It formed a roof above the beach, about 5 meters deep and 13 meters wide, very low but at the highest point on the lip about 2.8 meters tall. Let's call this a small cave! Or maybe not, your call, but in Finland we would have been glad to have such a roof on a cliff. Anyway, I also scanned this possible cave with my lidar-enabled iPhone. You can see the form of the cave in the pictures below, there's also the 3D model, rotate-on-your-browser version, and a map schematic about the cave shape.

The museum office for the bunker and fort is at N 55.26460 E 12.40980. The main bunker entrance is at N 55.26436 E12.41554.

The cave is at N 55.263283 E 12.416556.

Museum:

Bunker:

Cave and the beach:

This article has also been published at Theurbanexplorer.net here. 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. Photos and text (c) 2026 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Solgårdsparken beach swim

On my way back to the airport I saw a beach on the way, just by the road. A quick swim was called for, after a lot of sweaty skiing and bunkering and travel around Copenhagen. 

There's a parking place, a few tables, steps to the beach, and a pier. The bottom is all sandy, and shallow all the way out.Very easy to swim. A bit of algae floating around though, but not too bad.

The beach is at N 55.42067 E 12.23420. More information about Solgårdsparken which is the park behind the beach can be found here.

This article has also been published at Planetswimmer.com here. Read the full series of swimming and sauna stories from planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool, or all blog articles from Blogspot and of course skiing articles from planetskier.net. Photos and text (c) 2026 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. There are no photos of beachgoers or sauna visitors.

Valkeakoski swimming hall

Valkeakoski. I knew this place mostly for the paper mill, but it is small city. And has a swimming hall! Since I was nearby, I wanted to try it.

First impressions were very nice, the building from outside is modern, there's some art next to it, and inside in the lobby I'm greeted by a diver guy... well done. 

Inside there's a main pool, 25 meters and six lanes; a teaching pool and a shallow pool for the smallest kids. Two saunas on each side, sadly both sides appeared to have sauna water throwing champions in charge of the water injection to the heater :-) too hot.

More information here.

Here's the paper mill:

This article has also been published at Planetswimmer.com here. Read the full series of swimming and sauna stories from planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool, or all blog articles from Blogspot and of course skiing articles from planetskier.net. Photos and text (c) 2026 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. There are no photos of beachgoers or sauna visitors.

Vilnius Grand Resort Spas

I tried to do my trip to Lithuania in a day, but the drives and the caves and skiing took too much time to really do it, so I opted for a 24 hour trip instead. I need a place to stay for the night, and the Vilnius Grand Resort seemed to fit the bill: affordable price (100€) per night, not too far from the airport, had a spa, and most importantly, the spa was open late into the night so I wouldn't miss when coming back from my tour.

The hotel itself is nice, but somewhat basic/dated. Where they excel is that they have not just a spa but two of them. The Aqua pool area includes a sauna and a pool, and is open for both adults and children. The entrance is included in many of the hotel room packages, my room for instance was around 80€ and included this.  The area is nice, but can be crowded. There's a main pool, a jacuzzi, and a children's pool.

The Vitality SPA area is for adults only and is extremely nice, certainly a luxury spa. Access to this spa cost an additional 19€ over my room cost, so around 100€ altogether, both spas and breakfast included alongside a big hotel room. You can enter the spa also as a non-staying guest. 

On the Vitality SPA side there's three saunas: a Finnish sauna, a relaxation (milder) sauna, and a steam sauna. All look great. There's a main pool (with some water jets), an enclosed round pool area with water showers, lights and sound show, and a jacuzzi, and outdoor jacuzzi and access to the grassy areas outside. The lights and sounds and showers show was quite spectacular, demonstrating a thunder storm. Bright flashing lights, color lights, varying levels of rain from drops to torrential downpour. Maybe I would have preferred something slightly more relaxing but it was certainly memorable!

More information here. The coordinates are N 54.828133 E 25.130802.

Vitality SPA pools:

Grass and lake beach area in front of the spa:

Aqua pools:

Hotel outside:

Hotel inside:

This article has also been published at Planetswimmer.com here. Read the full series of sauna and swimming stories from planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool, or all blog articles from Blogspot. Photos and text (c) 2026 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. The indoor spa photos in this article is from the resort's spa home page; all rights reserved by them.

Meiko swim

Meiko is a lake and a natural protection area in Kirkkonummi, Finland. There's ample hiking routes, I took the 4.5 kilometer Kotokierros route, very nice across multiple small lakes. When I returned I walked to the Meiko lake itself for a dip in the lake.

Such a nice, wilderness feeling experience overall. At the Meiko lake and the near the parking lot there were a lot of people, further not so much. On the swim the sun was shining, water was clean.. not a beach but with some swimming footwear one can walk the lake easily.

More information about Meiko can be found in Kirkkonummi's pages and even better at Uuvi. The latter has a good quality map of the routes, for instance.

My swimming place was at N 60.1477 E 24.3646 at the beginning of the Näseudden peninsula, on the eastern side of the Meiko lake. There's an outdoor near this place, no changing rooms but usually there aren't any other people anyway. From the parking lot it is like a 10-15 minute walk.

Photos:

This article has also been published at Planetswimmer.com here. Read the full series of swimming and sauna stories from planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool, or all blog articles from Blogspot and of course skiing articles from planetskier.net. Photos and text (c) 2026 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. There are no photos of beachgoers or sauna visitors.

Ski trip to Lithuania.. in June

Well, I have to. I have to ski every month, that is. So now it is time to fly to Lithuania and go skiing, even if it is middle of June. Lithuania has the closest indoor ski place in Druskininkai, the Snow Arena. 

I've been here before, 13 years ago, though that was in the winter. Still, it wasn't the coldest winter so I still skied indoors in the same place. My previousvisit article is here (alt. link).

It is a remarkable place. I really liked skiing here. It is long enough, not too short like some of the other places. The engineering is great, the entrance is on the middle, part of the ski slope is downhill from the entry point which is at the top of a hill, and the other part of the ski slope is built on an elevated building.

There's also a hotel, and amazingly also a gondola that takes you to the city of Druskininkai (I guess, I did not take the gondola).

Lift tickets are between 17 and 25€ for the shortest two hour visit, depending on whether you are visiting on a weekday or a weekend. Equipment rental can be as little as 7€. All very affordable.

The main slope is 450 meters long, quite reasonable! It is 50 meters wide, though in practice most of the time it seems to be in use by the racing teams, so not accessible for others. The racing side is also hard ice from what was I could see, so even if you did get access to it it may not be your thing.

There's also a side slope, either for beginnings or for tobogganing. Next to the slide slope there was an ice climbing wall. At the time of my visit it was melting away, maybe not always in use but clearly had been used. Very interesting, would like to try indoor ice climbing here one day, or in Norway's Snø.

Photos:

Lobby:

Panorama of the slope from the middle entrance:

Restaurant:

Sign leading to the city:

Ticket:

A view from the lounge at the top of the structure. This isn't accessible for skiers, but you can see it. I think it may be part of the hotel.

Tunnel leading to the middle entrance from the dressing rooms and rentals:

The building as viewed from inside (around the middle entrance):

This article has also been published at Planetskier.net here. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot. Photos and text (c) 2026 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.