Finnish sauna

Finland is a country in northern Europe. It borders with Russia, Sweden, and Norway. The Finnish sauna is a substantial part of Finnish culture. There are five million inhabitants and over three million saunas in Finland – an average of one per household. For Finnish people the sauna is a place to relax with friends and family, and a place for physical and mental relaxation as well. Finns think of saunas not as a luxury, but as a necessity. Before the rise of public health care and nursery facilities, almost all Finnish mothers gave birth in saunas.

Finish Sauna postcard

This awesome postcard was received via Postcrossing. Thanks, Paula!

Åland Islands

The Åland Islands or Åland is a region of Finland that consists of an archipelago at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea. It is autonomous, demilitarised and is the only monolingually Swedish-speaking region in Finland. Åland has 6,700 named islands and a total of 20,000 islands and islets.

Here are the couple of postcards I received from Åland so far:

aland-0001-f

aland-0002-f

And the stamps that were used: