Ice Hotel?!

Friday, January 21 - Sunday, January 23 2011

Honestly—one of the most amazing and unique trips we’ve ever been on.  The infamous ‘Ice Hotel’ has been on each of our bucket lists for several years and when the opportunity presented itself for us to visit, we couldn’t resist.  We really didn’t know what to expect before going.  How cold would it be?  What will the hotel look like?  Will we be able to sleep?  How does one actually mush dogs?  Are the Finnish friendly and do they speak any English?  The list goes on…  We’re happy to say we had an incredible time in the process of answering all of these questions.

 

The Ice Hotel property we chose was called the ‘Snow Village’ and is located in Kittila, Finland, which is in the ‘Lapland’ region of the northern Scandinavian countries (about 200 miles from the north pole).  We took a two-leg flight from Geneva on Friday morning, stopped in Helsinki, and then arrived in Kittila that evening.  Because we were so far north it was already pitch black by then.  It was another 30-minute cab ride to the ‘hotel’, which was literally in the middle of nowhere (a little creepy getting out there, to be honest).  As we pulled up we could see the glow of the blue lights against the large ice & snow structure.  We couldn’t help but smile—was this for real?

Upon first impression, the hotel was bigger than expected.  The structure was setup with a large lodge/restaurant on one end, the hotel in the middle, and another lodge-like structure at the opposite end (offering bathrooms and a warm hangout room for guests).  We immediately took a tour of the hotel with Jan, one of the hotel staff who also helped to build the structure.  He informed us of some Snow Village fun facts we’ll share with you: First, the hotel is rebuilt every year.  They use artificially made snow if not enough is available at the beginning of construction, and they take ice from the nearby river-- but literally, the entire hotel portion of the property is strictly made from snow & ice.  They design the hotel differently each year and it takes 20 men about 2 - 3 weeks to complete it.  They stop taking reservations in April when the hotel starts to melt and Jan was very proud to point out that when the hotel does melt, it drains back to the river from which it came (very ‘green’ he says).  The hotel is complete with an ice restaurant & bar, a wedding chapel (where they hold on average 60 weddings each year?!), and multiple fire extinguishers (try and figure that one out).  There are about 8 themed rooms, which are uniquely decorated, and about 40 standard rooms housing just an ice bed.

Warm Restaurant Area

Safety First!

After our tour we were ready for dinner in the ice bar!  Yes, those tables and chairs you see are made of ice… there is a thin pad you can sit on but after about 20 minutes your butt starts to get pretty cold.  Apparently it is customary for guests of the Snow Village to be presented with two ‘Welcome’ shots at their first meal, which are served in ice shot glasses.  You may or may not know that neither of us are fans of taking shots—and neither of us can stand the taste of vodka.  So when proudly presented with two shots of cranberry vodka and told the glasses take about 10 minutes to melt when they have liquid in them—what were we supposed to do?  We both cringed a little and then put them down quickly, having to chase them with a few gulps of wine.  All part of the experience we suppose.  The real treat of the evening was the food—we can now say we’ve eaten reindeer (sorry Rudolph), and it was surprisingly really good!

 

As you can see, the restaurant wasn’t very busy on our first night but the next night was packed with tourists (right).  We spent the rest of the night playing cards, reading and relaxing in the warm lodge area.  We hadn’t anticipated it, but this turned out to be one of the most laid back trips we’ve taken so far.  We welcomed it as a perfect break from our busy work schedules over the last couple weeks (last couple months for Ang).  Also, the entire hotel staff was incredibly friendly and accommodating, which makes any stay even more enjoyable.

At around midnight we decided it was time to leave our warm haven and brave the cold out in our ice room.  The way it works is they give you a fleece sleep sack as well as an ultra-thick down sleeping bag.  They tell you to only sleep with a thin layer of clothes on or else you’ll get too hot, sweat, and then get cold because of the moisture.  They also tell you to put the clothes you want to wear the next morning in the sleep sack with you so they are nice and toasty for you in the morning…something we were happy to do. :)  The bed itself felt like a regular mattress, it was just framed by ice blocks as you can see below.  The room stayed anywhere between -5 and -2 Celsius (23 and 28 Fahrenheit) during the night while it was a chilling -15 Celsius (5 Fahrenheit) outside.  For the most part we slept pretty well!  Ang only woke up a few times in the early morning and Dave slept like a baby.  We were mostly scared about having to use the bathroom in the middle of the night so at least we avoided that situation.  Jan was our official wakeup call at 8am and provided us with some delicious hot blueberry juice and a diploma for each of us since we made it through the night without having to tap out.

So we braved a night in the cold room – what was next on the agenda?  Dog mushing!  When we signed up for our husky adventure we really didn’t know what to expect.  Surely we wouldn’t be able to actually control the sled, right?  And even if we did, we’ll probably have the guide “holding our hands” along the way, right?  Not so much.  It was basically us, another couple, and the guide – all on 3 separate sleds.  Our guide gave us a quick tutorial—the use of the brake and leaning heavily into our turns—and then we were off.  Dave drove first while Ang rode in the sled, then vice versa.  As you can see from the pictures we were basically riding through an open plain of some sort and was one of the more stunning scenes we’ve ever seen.  The only sounds we could hear were the crunching of the snow and the occasional squeak of the wooden dogsled—everything else still and quiet.  It was great fun—and amazing to see the passion and purpose the dogs had for running that sled, they could not sit still at the thought of it.  If only we felt that same way about our jobs!  Haha.  We arrived back at the lodge and Ang had to say bye to our five dog friends. 

After our time with the doggies we did the outside tour admiring the handy work and also the gorgeous scenery...

As if we hadn’t experienced enough, we thought there was one more thing we needed to check off the list while in Finland.  Earlier that day we noticed one of the couples staying at the hotel running back and forth between the sauna and the outdoors.  We finally realized that they would heat up in the sauna, and then go outside to roll in the snow—then back to the sauna, then back to the snow!  We had totally forgotten that this was a very common thing to do in Scandinavian countries – so we felt compelled to experience this custom.  We talked to the hotel staff about arranging a session in the sauna.  Turns out the cabin we were staying in that night had it’s own personal sauna (more on the cabin in a minute).  Long story short, we made 4 trips between the 150 degree sauna and the 5 degree outdoors (plus snow-to-skin contact as we rolled in the snow).  Was it torturous at the time?  Yes, horribly.  But the way your body feels about 20 minutes later when it’s finally thawing out is pretty spectacular and rejuvenating.  We can see why it’s tradition!

Oh yes, the little cabin.  Once again, when we heard our second night would be spent in warm room we really didn’t know what to expect.  Turns out they hooked us up with a sweet little cabin fully stocked (minus food).  It was a fantastic place that we could have stayed in all winter—absolutely loved it.  And had a wood-burning fireplace, with which we of course enjoyed for many hours that night.  Big bummer we would only be there one night!

Our last and final wish of this great trip was to see the elusive Northern Lights.  We planned perfectly for it (they are most common in January and February).  Our first night there it was snowing and therefore not clear enough to see the Northern Lights even if they were out.  Our second night was clear enough to see the stars and we thought for sure we’d see the Lights!  We went outside about every 30 minutes from about 9pm to 2am hoping even for just a glimpse, but alas, it was not to be.  Our search for the Northern Lights continues…maybe Sweden’s Ice Hotel next January!