Salish Lodge - Spa above the Snoqualmie Falls

Salish Lodge is a luxury hotel ledged right above the spectacular 82 meter Snoqualmie Falls. The falls and the lodge are iconic and well known, not least due to their presence in the 1990s TV series Twin Peaks. It is a wonderful park to visit, and the views really are something else, I think objectively a more beautiful place than the Niagara Falls, for instance. And the hotel is superb.

So is the restaurant. Wonderful food, never have had edible candle appetizer for instance :-) 

The spa is fairly compact though, compared to the outsize reputation of the hotel. There are two pools, but only one of the is usable for hotel guests, and there is just one Finnish sauna. Very nice spa, but be sure to book your visit, it is not guaranteed that there are slots for your visit. Hotel staff is very nice though, for instance we were able to visit the spa without any extra payment or reservation, luckily it happened to free at the time.

The falls continue to be spectacular, although some or perhaps most of the water is diverted to two power plants, one built inside the cliffs in 1899, and another one half a kilometer downstream in 1910. The plants are owned by Puget Sound Energy.  

The land was also owned by them (I think), but in 2007 the Muckleshoot tribe purchased the land surrounding the falls, and planned to develop the area with a hotel and homes. Arguments about building on this land that was sacred to the Snoqualmie people ensued. The place is a burial site and the location for their fabled history, "the place where First Woman and First Man were created by Moon the Transformer".

Then in 2019, the Snoqualmie Tribe purchased the lodge and the area surrounding it. 

The park by the hotel has viewing platforms on the cliff ledges above the river canyon, probably the best viewing spot. But there's a very nice path down to the river. Here you can see the 1910 power plant and the massive water pipes leading to it. You can also walk a few hundred meters forward on a platform built by the riverside, to view the falls from a different angle, at the river level. 

There's a lot of nature and trees on the path down to the river, much recommended. It does descend 100 meters though, so if you're not equipped to climb that back up you should know there's also a way to get to the same spot by the riverside by car. (Or get an Uber to haul you back up.)

The lodge home page is here, and more information from it can be found from the Snoqualmie Falls wikipedia page. Room prices at the lodge start from four hundred dollars per night even on low season weeknights.

More photos, first the hotel and falls:

Then the walk down the park trail to see view from the riverside:

Then the spa, first the private party pool (not for hotel guests) and then the sauna:

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. In this case the pool photos are by the Salish Lodge (from salishlodge.com) and they retain all rights to them.

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.