Luxury Finland: Helsinki, Lapland and the Northern Lights

Arrive into Helsinki and transfer privately to your hotel on Esplanadi, the boulevard that runs through the centre of the city to the South Harbour. Do Not Disturb selects the right property based on your preferences, with options ranging from historic grand hotels that have been at the centre of Helsinki’s cultural life for over a century to smaller design-led properties in the heart of the city.

Helsinki is a city of two speeds. The daytime is for the museums, the markets and the design district, and the evening is for the restaurants. The Old Market Hall on the South Harbour has been trading since 1889 and is where the fish, cheese and smoked meats of the surrounding region are sold each morning. The design district south of Esplanadi concentrates the city’s independent studios, galleries and shops into a few walkable blocks, centred on the work of Finnish designers from Iittala to Artek.

Your private guide covers the city on the first full day, starting at Senate Square, framed by Helsinki Cathedral and the neoclassical buildings that make up the administrative centre of the capital. The Temppeliaukio Church, known as the Rock Church, was built directly into the bedrock of the city in 1969 and seats 750 people in a copper-domed chamber carved from solid granite. Suomenlinna, the 18th-century sea fortress on an island off the South Harbour, is reached by a fifteen-minute ferry and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Helsinki now has multiple Michelin-starred restaurants, most built around Finnish produce, game and coastal seafood. Do Not Disturb will work to secure reservations based on your preferences for both evenings, though availability at the most sought-after restaurants cannot always be guaranteed.

A guided introduction to cross-country skiing on the trails around Rovaniemi, one of the oldest forms of winter travel in Lapland and still the way locals move through the forest in winter.

The trails run through birch forest and along the frozen riverbank, and the pace is set by your guide rather than a clock. No prior experience is needed.

The afternoon moves into a traditional Finnish sauna ritual at the property. The sauna is not a footnote to Finnish culture, it is central to it, with over three million saunas in a country of five and a half million people.

The ritual works through heat, cooling and rest in alternating stages, and the experience at the end of a day on the snow is as restorative as anything else the week offers.

A morning excursion to one of the frozen lakes outside Rovaniemi, with a local guide who drills the ice and teaches the technique over two hours before cooking the catch on an open fire in the forest.

Ice fishing has been practiced in this region for centuries and the combination of the frozen landscape, the fire and the lake is hard to find a comparison for elsewhere in Europe.

The afternoon is at leisure, with time in the sauna before the evening. The Northern Lights are most active between 9pm and 2am. Glass-fronted rooms facing north mean that a strong display will be visible without leaving the property, though your guide will call if the forecast shows a significant event worth going out for.

A private transfer to Rovaniemi Airport for the return flight to Helsinki and onward international connections. Do Not Disturb handles the full routing home from Rovaniemi to your departure city.