Yahoo Finance Brrrrr! The World's First Year-Round Ice Hotel Is Here
Ice-sculpted suites carved with glistening artwork? An ice bar with champagne at the ready? No, this isn't the hideout of some mysterious James Bond villain (remember that Ice Palace from "Die Another Day"?).
It's Sweden's Icehotel, just 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle. Since 1989, the icy retreat has reinvented itself 27 times, melting each spring into the nearby Torne River from which it was made.
Now a new 2,100-square-meter permanent addition–fittingly named Icehotel 365–is open to the public and will remain open year-round even as the rest of the structure starts to melt come spring.
The classic Icehotel, welcoming around 50,000 guests a year, as well as its 365 counterpart are both built in the winter using a mixture of snow and ice, also known as "snice," made of the water from the Torne.
For 365, the snice is attached onto the walls and inside the roofs to give the suites the same feeling as the original structure, the hotel's creative director Arne Bergh tells Conde Nast Traveler.
In the summer, Icehotel 365 will continue to keep guests cool thanks to Mother Nature and some eco-friendly technology - namely, solar panels used to harvest the energy from the roughly 100 consecutive days of sunlight that occurs over Jukkasjärvi, the Swedish village where the hotel is based. That energy, in turn, is used to power the refrigerating plant that keeps Icehotel 365 cool as temperatures outside warm up. Neat, right?
But don't let the cold temps scare you away. While the new building keeps a temperature around minus five degrees Celsius (or 23 degrees Fahrenheit), the Icehotel provides guests with expedition-style sleeping bags to stay nice and toasty at night.
A loan of warm outer clothing (snowsuit, boots, gloves and balaclava) is also included in your stay, though it's recommended you pack thermal underwear, breathable layers, plenty of socks and a warm hat.
In addition to the ice bar and an ice gallery, the year-round structure also features 20 suites–all hand-carved by some 40 select artists from across the globe. Bonus: Each of the 9 deluxe suites features a private, heated bathroom and a sauna.
Check out more photos of the phenomenal interior below.
h/t: designboom
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