Inside the ICEHOTEL, Sweden

Kate Lough takes you on a tour of Sweden's famous and unique hotel, the latest star of BBC's Amazing Hotels series 
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Kate Lough29 April 2017

For the last episode of BB2's Amazing Hotels, Giles Coren and Monica Galetti head to the Arctic to nosy around the world’s first hotel made of ice and snow.

Founded in 1989, this pioneering hotel has set itself a new challenge for 2017: to stay open all year around as ICEHOTEL 365. Here's everything you need to know about the hotel where art and ice collide with spectacular effect.

Where is it?

It’s 200km north of the Arctic Circle in village of Jukkasjärvi in Swedish Lapland. It is positioned near the Torne River, the largest of Sweden’s four national rivers and a wild one, too. At 520km long, it runs from the mountains in the west of the country to the coast in the east, where it flows into the Bay of Bothnia. It is this river that provides the hotel with its ice in winter.

What’s the story?

Asaf Kliger

ICEHOTEL was inspired by the Japanese ice sculpting tradition. Yngve Berqvist hired two professionals from Japan as instructors and invited local artists to attend a workshop in 1989. The next winter, the first ice structure – a 60m squared igloo – was constructed as an art gallery and named ARTic Hall. In the years that followed (by which time the hall had become a yearly tradition), a group of guests asked if they could stay overnight – equipped with reindeer skins and sleeping bags, they woke up enthralled by the experience. And so the ICEHOTEL was born.

What’s the style?

Each year around 40 artists gather to design the new ICEHOTEL after it has melted away, using great blocks of ice from the Torne River. So each year, you get a new hotel and art installation.

So what’s ICEhotel 365?

This year, the hotel will stay open 365 days of the year, powered by the sun. ICEHOTEL 365 will include a bar, art gallery and suites for overnight stays with saunas and bathrooms. It uses the near constant daylight of the summer months in the Arctic Circle to allow to building to run solely on solar panel. During the winter, it will become an addition of the classic ICEHOTEL.

What are the rooms like?

The hotel offers warm and cold accommodation, with the suggestion that you book one of each. Standard cold rooms come with a bed made of ice, draped in reindeer skins and a temperature of about -5 degrees Celsius. In the ‘Dressing Room’, a warm building next to the hotel, you’ll find communal changing rooms, toilets and saunas for each sex.

Asaf Kliger

What about food & drink?

There is a fine dining restaurant at ICEHOTEL as well as a traditional homestead restaurant, Hembygdsgården, which was built in 1768. There’s also the ICEBAR, a once in a lifetime experience where you drink cocktails and champagne out of ice and the cosy Lounge bar.

What is there to do?

Asaf Kliger

You can take guided Northern Lights tours, try ice sculpting for yourself, go husky sledding, moose watching and on a snowmobile safari

Details

ICEHOTEL gets booked up very quickly, so it’s wise to book about a year in advance. Icehotel.com

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