That little house in the great woods is actually a sauna. Traditionally, a sauna has always been a separate building, standing apart from the main house. Possibly due to the risk of fire. Saunas used to burn down from time to time.
The two elements of a sauna are fire and water. For thousands of years they brought babies into life and guided dying ones in their last moments of this life. A flu is still often cured in the sauna, and hearts are kept strong by alternating between hot air baths and cold winter water baths. Saunas alleviate any kind of muscle ache, even women’s own kind of deep muscle ache.
And (in contrast to many American saunas) in a Finnish sauna there are no warning signs: no doctor’s consultation needed, no advice against entering if one is old, pregnant, or if one suffers of a weak heart or low blood pressure. Because there is no need: a sauna is not a dangerous place, quite the opposite. The combination of sauna and some common sense and listening to one’s body is beneficial for everybody.
(Loviisa, Finland; December 2018)
Winter days in Finland are short. Down South in Helsinki day length is 5 hours 50 minutes at its shortest, in deep December. After all, different from Copenhagen which is geographically not really Nordic at all, Helsinki is on the same latitude as Oslo, Kamchatka, Quebec, and Shetland Islands.
Christmastime in Copenhagen means lots of mulled wine, strange sweet pasties and candies, and people still sitting outside (under gas heating). Yes, outside, because after all Denmark is not really geographically Nordic. It is on the same latitude as Edinburgh, Klaipeda, and Moscow.
(Copenhagen, Denmark; December 2018)
Somewhere along the way, months ago, Helsinki grew dark. In early December it remains dark even on a reasonably clear day. This is the time for salmon soup lunches, served hot with toasted rye bread. For mulled wine made in the Nordic way with berry juice blended in wine, with or without spirits, with raisins and sweet almonds covering the bottom of the mug. And this is also the time of frantic christmas shopping, for most people.
(Helsinki, Finland; December 2018)
The only light of day here in Denmark may not be longer than five minutes. The sun only shows itself provided that the ever-ruling clouds give way. Sometimes weeks pass without direct sunlight. And I am struggling to remember that the sun has never left us. It is shining just as brightly, if only we fly a few kilometers upward in search of it.
My favorite spot and 
(Brande, Denmark; December 2018)
It was frosty in Stockholm this morning. Crunch-under-the-shoe and sneeze -kind of frosty.
The lighthouse at Vejle fjord was much easier to reach than the one in Virginia Woolf’s novel. I recall it took the family ten years and a death in the family to finally set sail and arrive. Whereas we simply walked across the grounds of the old sanatorium and followed the path down the beach. 
The Vejlefjord sanatorium was built for wealthy Danes to “take the airs and waters”, especially if they suffered from tuberculosis (or “consumption”, as it was called back then). Today there still is a rehabilitation center, but it has given way to spa now installed in the new building. Two visits later I am still too consumed by the experience to manage one single photo from the inside. But imagine this: a simple, Japanese-inspired layout with natural stone and wood, lots of natural light, a forest sauna accessible by a walk outside (even throughout the winter), a hot outdoor pool, turkish baths and aromatherapy saunas and sound baths and light baths and meditation and yoga and spa treatments and free herbal tea and a healthy buffet and to top it all off: a thalasso spa with a salt sauna. One can easily spend 6 lazy hours without having the time to try everything offered.
(Vejlefjord Spa, Denmark; November 2018)
The more time I spend here in Denmark, the more I am struck by how it is not really much like the rest of the Nordics. Instead of fells or mountains, Denmark is (nearly) flat. Copenhagen, with its bicycles, canals, cobblestone streets, beer, waffles, and rain reminds me of the Netherlands. So do the roads and many smaller towns, as well as how houses are built. The forest is nothing like Nordic, impenetrable, shrubby spruce or dry, lichen-covered pine. Instead there are airy beech forests like in central Europe, with dead leaves rattling under one’s shoes; and pine and spruce plantations where trees live in rows or are, at the very least, standing far apart with a clean, green moss floor in-between.
What is Nordic about Denmark is the language. And perhaps the setup of the social-democrat welfare society. Income tax is among the highest in the world, but schools, healthcare, libraries, child care, elderly care, you name it – are nearly or completely free of charge.
(Silkeborg, Denmark; November 2018)
We tend to think forest walks are peaceful and soul-nurturing. And yet possibly we walk in a war zone between two tree populations, or past trees that are screaming out (chemically) because they are being eaten by insects, or just among incessant chatter by chemical signals in the air or between the roots.
This blue marble 