Ice Hotel

On our way back to the airport this afternoon, we took a detour to visit the famous Ice Hotel in the Swedish village of Jukkasjärvi.  This hotel is built annually from blocks of ice cut from the adjacent Torne River - although they have now, in addition, built an "Ice Hotel 365" which is a permanent structure, kept cold in the summer using power from solar panels.

You can stay overnight in one of the rooms, many of which are decorated with stunning art work created from ice.  The traditional hotel is rebuilt each year with totally different designs from international artists. We wandered around the hotel for a couple of hours and I photographed many of the rooms.  The blip I have chosen is a view down the main corridor from close to the entrance, looking towards the chapel at the far end.  Even the chandelier is made of ice. 

You can see more of the hotel on their web site.

The area around the hotel where we have been staying looked absolutely stunning this morning, with bright sun shining on the newly fallen snow.  This is a delightful part of the world and well worth visiting.

The temperature at Kiruna airport as we left this evening was -21C.