November in Finland can be grey and dark. Finns celebrate Father’s Day at 10th of November and our family decided to celebrate it by a little trip to archipelago close by Jyväskylä, Säynätsalo Islands & fight againts the weather. We were lucky to have a hint of snow around and the rain kept away.
Säynätsalo Town hall is located in the main island. The beautiful building is designed by Alvar Aalto himself in 1949. It’s a great destination to visit and it’s open daily except Tuesday. https://www.tavolobianco.com/fi/etusivu/.
We have fallen in love with the little cafe shop on the ground floor of the building, Town Hall Cafe & Bakery. Cafe is cosy and decor is well designed to the buildings elegance. There is always interesting art to see on the walls by local artists. This time the paintings were by Tuula Vuoli-Vallenius. The delicacies the cafe has to offer are delicious and all locally made. Finnish design is present also in table ware. Just lovely, cosy and unique setting to experience!
Cafe is dog friendly and for us it’s one more reason to take a ride all the way over to Säynätsalo. While we are out on the islands, it’s a great chance to enjoy the beautiful outdoors as well. Depending on the weather there are many hikes to choose from. One of the easiest and most beautiful ones is the Lehtisaari track which is only 1,2 kilometres long but it’s located in a unique point from the island of Lehtisaari.
We were really lucky to see these beautiful pieces of ice art by nature. The weather has been really rainy lately and the lake is far from freezing, so we were really amazed to experience this.
The stillness of nature was really calming experience. The greyness didn’t take the beauty away, instead it opened in a new way for us again. The main thing is to go out in the nature and be open for all the beauty it has to offer no matter of the weather. We found the beauty of grey November. Let’s try to make most of it!
Styling by Una 