Ice Ice Baby

On April 2nd we said goodbye to the dogs and checked into the world famous, original, Ice Hotel. It was much more impressive than I thought it would be, and I admit I spent little time looking online to prepare myself for the experience.

There is a heated, regular construction portion of the hotel, which stays in place all year round. This abuts the lobby, Ice Bar and sleeping rooms, constructed new each year from blocks of ice from the Torne River. The temperature inside is a steady -5C, which must feel quite warm in the dead of winter, was but was quite chilly since the outside temps were approaching +10C when we visited.

Since the operators of the Ice Hotel have been at it for nearly 20 years, they know how to prepare guests to sleep in the ice rooms, handing out warm sleeping bags, liners, and assigning warm changing and storage rooms for before and after the cold night.

Our tour had booked us into the Ice Suites – each with a different theme carved by a team of artists in the ice (there are also cheaper plain ice rooms that are all the same). http://icehotel.com/uk/ICEHOTEL/ Mine was entitled “Flow”, and I invited Jordana to share it with me, since she was without room and I didn’t want to have the experience alone (she has slept there many times as a guide and gave us expert advice on staying warm through the night).

So we had our farewell dinner, with the Dutch buying us all drinks first in the Ice Bar, then in the heated lounge (I finally had great coffee, yippee!) The surroundings invited much silliness, and it was only with a Benedryl that I settled down to make it through the cold night sleeping, literally, on a block of ice.

We were awakened by staff bearing hot lingonberry juice to warm us up, and after a hot shower and lavish breakfast buffet we were on our way back to Stockholm. Goodbye Jordana!

Note about dog sledding: the trip I did is no longer being offered, so check out http://huskytours.com/ if you are interested in doing one yourself!