In december 07, I visited the Icehotel outside Kiruna in the very north of Sweden. A really amazing place - everything, absolutely everything is made out of ice and snow. OK, the electric flexes, the lights and the mattresses on top of the ice beds are "real" material, but that only count up to about 1 per cent of all material used. I was told that the temperature inside the hotel constantly is about -5 degrees Celsius.
If you want to spend the night in one of the rooms inside the hotel, you get a small cabin to put your luggage in outside the hotel (because it will freeze inside the cold room, of course) and a sleeping bag to sleep in in your ice room. You put your sleeping bag on top of the reindeer skins on your bed, dressed in thermal underwear, and hopefully fall asleep. There are warm accommodation alternatives in cabins, too, if you´d prefer that.
The Icehotel management have put a strong focus on art and sculpture. The art suites all have their individual design (there are regular rooms, too) and the ice bar, with even the glasses made out of ice, is also a part of the hotel and well worth a visit. Not to mention the sculpture exhibition and the small ice church inside the "building".
Next time I go there I will be brave enough to spend a night in one of the ice rooms!
