The IceHotel in Swedish Lapland is now open – with rooms inspired by Fabergé eggs, outer space and refugees
30,000 cubic metres of snow and ice have been used for the hotel, which also features an ice bar, an ice ceremony hall and a creative frozen playground
The Icehotel in Swedish Lapland has opened for the winter season, with room designs including a Fabergé egg, a space room and a suite inspired by boat refugees’ journeys across the Med.
The hotel has 35 suites, each designed by creatives from across the world – including the UK.
Each year, creates a new series of artist-designed accommodation spaces out of ice, that add to the existing landscape of private rooms.
As well as 35 ice rooms, the hotel features an ice bar, an ice ceremony hall, a creative frozen playground for kids to enjoy.
A total of 30,000 cubic metres of snow and ice have been used in the seasonal building, as well as 500 tons of crystal clear natural ice to create the art, ice glasses and the ice bar.
Plus, 1,000 hand-polished ice crystals were used for the chandeliers in the Main Hall.
The Main Hall, reception and the ice ceremony hall in the seasonal part of Icehotel, which is the 28th rendition of the hotel, have a ‘Flower Power’ theme.
These rooms are decorated with 200 hand-sculpted snice (snow and ice) flowers that form a frozen ‘flowerfall.’
A total of 36 artists from 17 different countries around the world were chosen to help design and build this year’s hotel, including two British teams, both of which were involved last year.
Liverpool based design duo Hugh and Howard Miller created an art suite called ‘A Rich Seam,’ where guests clamber into an ice seam covered in crystal clear ice.
There is also a Dorset-based sculptor and taxidermist called Lisa Lindqvist, who created a suite called ‘A Wandering Cloud’ that features a huge ice-carved cloud hanging over the frozen bed.
There is also a frozen sea landscape called ‘Danger,’ where an ice bridge offers the only way to reach the bed, an army of ice-carved women inspired by the infamous Terracotta Army and a room called ’34 Metres’ that features a labyrinth made of 34m of walls.
Each room holds a temperature of -5 to -8 degrees Celsius and the bed is covered with reindeer hides, with an additional thermal sleeping bag to keep warm.
Guests are woken in the morning with a cup of hot lingonberry juice and a sauna session to help warm up before breakfast.
As well as a night in an ice cave, the hotel offers Arctic yoga, winter running, Nordic skiing and a ‘Chef’s Table’ dining experience with a twelve-course tasting menu including fir sprouts, cloudberry and sea buckthorn.
Founded in 1989, the hotel is reborn in a new guise every winter, in the Swedish village of Jukkasjärvi – 200 km north of the Arctic Circle.
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The nearby Torne River provides Icehotel with its ice in winter – and in the summer when the hotel melts, the water returns to its source.
This year, 10 direct flights from London Heathrow to Kiruna will run throughout the winter season, making the Icehotel accessible in three hours from the UK.
including flights start from £1,154pp. Or alternatively, stay in hotels nearby and pop to the Icehotel for dinner and drinks.