Ice Hotel (Sweden)

[5kgLifter]

I just watched a fascinating programme about the construction of the ice hotel in Sweden. My Belgian penfriend and her mother went to an ice hotel, but I think that one was in Iceland, drank from glasses made of ice and had a great time.

It looks cool (no pun intended) but the prices for staying are, let's just say, high.

Ice hotel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[BendtheBar]

Wow that looks amazing.

Honeymoon palace for Big Swede...

[Hazzard]

Originally Posted by BendtheBar

Wow that looks amazing.

Honeymoon palace for Big Swede...

...with all his MaB buddies! Although with all out combined weight the place might shatter...

[big_swede]

That place is great! Never been there myself but heard about it, they also have artists who sculpts incredible thing out of big blocks of ice -using chainsaws!

[Shadowschmadow]

I'm pretty sure I saw part of the construction of that on Modern Marvels.

[5kgLifter]

It was interesting to see them using forms (metal mainly) covered with snow which was made from the river water and then the forms are removed but if the temperature rises the snow then melts and sets around the form making it difficult to remove the form.

The ice chandelier has every part cut from ice which is obtained from the river the spring previous, I think, and then stored over the summer for use during the construction in the winter. I saw one of the ice carvings being put in to place and it's not something that you really think about but they weight a fair bit and one slip and anyone that's in the way is a gonner; so, they're very careful to make sure people are not standing in the way when placing them in position.

The other thing is when taking an ice block out of the freezer (a big place, on site, I think) if it is taken into a slightly higher temperature, it cracks which then makes it useless; and any ice blocks that are left out, if the temperature rises, start to melt together but if stored within the ice hotel will remain separate due to the internal temp of the building.

The Swedish ice Hotel also supplies several of the other ice hotels (Finland, Italy etc) with their ice tumblers for the drinks; so they're busy cutting those from small blocks. Drinks cost around £8 (GBP) which is pretty hefty per shot.

The part that really amazed me was watching the electricians place wires through ice...water and electric...no thank you...but, I'm sure they know what they're doing after having started building the places many years ago.

Fascinating stuff to watch though...hope I recalled the info correctly, but I'm sure you can find stats online and some youtube vids if anyone wants to research it further.

[Shadowschmadow]

Well if its that cold in Sweden to keep an ice hotel frozen, I suppose that will never be a vacationing spot for me.

[pploon]

That does look neat. How warm would it really be though?

[Tannhauser]

Harbin always looks interesting. I'd love to go.

[5kgLifter]

Originally Posted by Tannhauser

Harbin always looks interesting. I'd love to go.

That place looks really cool (in more ways than one ); had never heard about it until your post. It's boggling what they can do with snow and ice, and all we generally do with ice is fall over.