The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
‘I want to leave all my layers on’
depths of winter, a period known as the Polar Night. An hour before I landed in Kiruna’s garden-shed airport, the sun slipped behind the horizon for the last time for three weeks. Poetically, it will next rise again on Jan 1. This doesn’t mean day-round darkness, but rather the world is cloaked in a pastel half-light, all hot pinks and deep blues, for just a few hours each day before night descends again at 2pm.
“We suggest you wear just one layer: a thermal top and bottoms, plus a hat and gloves,” the porter tells me, eyeing up my Michelin Man get-up as he hands me a Polar-grade sleeping bag. My survival instincts urge me to secretly leave all my layers on – maybe even add a few more for good measure – but the porter, serious now, tells me that the sweat would have a negative effect and cool me down. So after he leaves the room, I dutifully strip down to my base layers and climb into the sleeping bag, with a reindeer hide and waterproof mattress protecting me from the ice-bed frame.
Lying perfectly still, I watch the ice sculptures around me glisten in the soft blue light and I give my toes a precautionary wiggle to check that they still have feeling. I flick the bedside switch and the room is immersed in total darkness but, to my surprise, it’s neither the chill nor the darkness that takes my breath away, but rather the silence. These walls are made of 3ft-thick “snice” (a mix of snow and ice), meaning not a whisper can creep in or out. It is just me and my breath, crystallising in the air.
I’m staying in one of the 20 suites in the Icehotel 365. It has 11 Art Suites and nine Deluxe Suites with adjoining bathrooms; thankfully, not made of ice. When I shiver out of bed the following morning, I thank the Sami gods for the hot tub, sauna and heated floors waiting to lift my body temperature.
Staying the night in the Icehotel
365 – which allows guests to sleep in sub-freezing temperatures yearround; solar power is harnessed to