The wintery Scandi city where floating sauna sessions are all the rage

Norway's capital made international headlines earlier this year when motorists in a car that plunged into the freezing fjord were rescued by a floating sauna. With a visit to Oslo coming up, I was intrigued. I was looking forward to visiting the city's excellent museums including its lauded new National Museum, opened in 2022. But I was less familiar with Oslo's sauna culture.

"Sauna is a Finnish tradition, but it suits us well," says Nina Prestegard, a guide with boutique walking tour operator byK, as we wander along Oslo's harbourfront on a warm (for Norway) summer's day. Urban sauna culture has taken off in Oslo, she tells me, with the head of the Oslofjord now boasting an array of options for a sauna session chased by refreshing dips in the sparkling fjord.

There's Kongen Marina's glass dome sauna offering 360-degree harbour views. Salt has six saunas with room for 100 people between them and in-sauna DJ entertainment on Saturdays. KOK has a collection of shared and private floating saunas, including a sauna boat. And Mad Goats operates Oslo's only alcohol-free saunas.

The trend started with a group of anarchists who joined forces with diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' ice bathing club to register Oslo's first floating sauna in 2016. Now known as the Oslo Sauna Association, the non-profit organisation now operates saunas in five locations.

I opt for a visit to its main Sukkerbiten location near Oslo's striking white Opera House, where NOK195 ($27) buys me a 90-minute session including access to three saunas open for communal use this afternoon. (Some of the nine saunas here, including a sauna boat, can be hired for private use.)

After a heart-starting shower, I hit Trosten (Thrush - as in the bird), the newest sauna in the floating complex. Designed by the Spanish architects behind the nearby Munch Museum dedicated to Norway's most famous artist, the mint-green, recycled-aluminium sauna has tiered outdoor seating and room for 22 people and two wheelchairs. After marinating in a haze of steam for 10 minutes, I take a dip in the fjord (which at 15 degrees Celsius isn't as cold as I expected) then grab a seat in the lemon-yellow Ulka Curie. Named for a rugged sailor and the pioneering physicist Marie Curie, it doubles as a sauna boat offering communal and private cruises around the Oslofjord.

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"Sauna is great for regulating sleep," says an Oslo local I get chatting to. Still calibrating to Oslo time after my long flight from Australia, I spoon more water over the wood-burning stove and breathe in the warm, earthy air.

Unlike traditional (nude) Finnish saunas, Oslo's saunas require visitors to wear swimming costumes, and bring two towels: one for sitting on, and one for drying off afterwards. The Oslo Sauna Association accepts walk-ins for shared saunas, but I pre-book just in case. After an hour and a half of sweating it out alongside locals and fellow tourists, I skip back to my hotel feeling surprisingly energised. But within a few hours I'm sleeping like a baby, my jetlag cured by a simple dose of fjord therapy. oslobadstuforening.no/en/home

The writer travelled with assistance from Citybox Oslo and Visit Oslo.