‘You come with your parents, then later your girlfriend or boyfriend’

Iceland: swimming pool culture

There are said to be 160 pools in Iceland. With a population of just over 400,000, this means one for every 2,500 people. Just as well, as swimming is so ingrained in the national psyche. This is a fairly recent phenomenon; in 1940 swimming lessons became mandatory for schoolchildren in response to drownings that were the result of previous poor competency.

“We were brought up in the swimming pool,” says film-maker Jón Karl Helgason, who made the 2022 documentary Sundlaugasögur (Swimming Pool Stories). “They are everyone’s playground. You come with your parents, then later your girlfriend or boyfriend.”

Iceland: With a population of just over 400,000, there is one pool for every 2,500 people. Photograph: iStock

Helgason swims almost every day in Reykjavík and pays 4,000 krona (€27) a year for unlimited access to his favourite public pool, one of 18 in the capital. The majority of pools are outdoors and geothermally heated, making it a more affordable pastime than in countries that have to heat the water, Helgason says.

As well as the obvious physical benefits of swimming, there are mental gains, too, through the sense of community that pools provide. “You meet lots of different people, from farmers to politicians,” Helgason says. Many pools have “hot pots” (hot tubs) – a nod to the country’s natural springs, which are also popular for a wilder dip – and cold plunges for cold-water therapy, along with saunas. “No phones are allowed.”

There is a campaign for Iceland’s pools to be given Unesco cultural heritage status.

‘It’s a blanket rule for almost all kids. We know it is bad to eat them every day’

Sweden: Saturday sweets

A custom ingrained in Swedish culture is that of lördagsgodis – sweets only on a Saturday – established as a concept by the state in the 1950s to tackle tooth decay among children. “There are very few kids growing up in Sweden who are not familiar with it,” says Linnea Dunne, author of Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living. “It is an institution that everyone lives by.”

Dunne lives in Dublin but grew up in Sala, an hour from Stockholm, and recalls the weekly ritual of going to choose pick-and-mix, which continues to this day. “When I go back, I see my brother’s kids still do it, and his oldest is 13. It’s a blanket rule for almost all kids: sweets are available on Saturdays, and that is it.