For the last part of our Arctic adventure, we had to drive 3-4 hours to a town called Kittilä. The drive it self was spectacular in itself, as we drive mainly in twilight and that gave us some incredible colours that matched the beautiful white landscape. As we drove south, we past the point where the sun actually rose above the horizon.
Whilst in Kittilä we had 2 main activities. The first was going to the Arcandia Arctic Adventure park. This was a little village in a forest that had a magical atmosphere, with it lights and “Nordic” huts. There were also a whole bunch of activities, of which the girls loved the toboggan hill, but this time it had turn in it, and they absolutely loved it. They also got to ride a mini snow mobile, and go round on a closed circuit. Not sure which was their favourite? Unfortunately we did not get to try all the activities as our feet were seriously getting frozen out in the Nordic cold weather.
The second highlight was spending the night at the Ice Hotel. We got there nearly as soon as we were allowed and got the introductory tour and ‘tips’ on how to survive the night. Then we got to explore all the rooms and the complex itself. This year the theme of the hotel was Nordic/Finnish mythology, and all the ice/snow sculptures reflected the theme. Our room was probably one of the coolest ones! It was set as a forge with one of the mythical person crafting magical weapons.
We opted to have dinner at the ice restaurant, at an ice table with ice chairs. It was cold, so cold that the cutlery tended to stick out our lips and tongue! The bottle of white wine, did not need to have a wine cooler, and actually was a bit slushy near the end of the dinner. The experience brought a new meaning to “Eat before your food gets cold” which in our case means frozen. Even the ice cream (yup we even had ice cream!) had to be eaten quickly before it froze rock solid!
We only could get to bed after 10pm, as the hotel is also a tourist attraction and people are wondering around till after 9pm. Once we collect all our gear: sleeping bag, fleece liner, outer fleece liner and pillows we went to our room. There was a bit of acrobatics to undress to our base layers and get into the sleeping bags, without getting too cold. The ice hotel is meant to have a constant temperature of around -5oC but because we were experiencing such cold weather the temperature inside dropped a few degrees further. Eventually we were all snuggled up and tried to get to sleep (they don’t actually turn off the lights inside the hotel rooms…) The kids dropped off quick and eventually the adults did as well.
In the morning we were woken up with a cup of hot lingon berry juice, after which we were happy to quickly redress and head to the HOT log restaurant for some breakfast. It took a few cups of hot tea to finally warm up.
Unfortunately the night at the ice hotel was our last night in the Arctic circle, before we head back to Poland via Helsinki. Whilst it as a cold trip (super cold) is has been an amazing experience, and we sure did manage to pack a lot in!
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