Ice Hotel, Jukkasjärvi - Part Two

It's been almost a week since I visited the Ice Hotel, but part two is finally here. I almost don't know what to say. It was an incredible experience to visit the Ice Hotel and to see and experience this in-person. The pictures are beautiful but they just doesn't capture how it feels to stand in the hotel and witness the beauty of the ice, snow and lights.

I have always loved snow culture, and been infatuated with "northern" things like snow, icebergs, etc. I remember wanting to visit the Arctic Circle when I was a kid, loving the Lawren Harris paintings of the north, wanting to take a trip to Alaska to see the icebergs or go to Greenland, Iceland or Norway to see the fjords. At some point my interest in/fascination with Norway morphed to Sweden, possibly because I was attracted to the art of Carl Larsson, started reading a lot of Swedish fiction (Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, Henning Mankell, Helene Tursten, Camilla Läckberg, Åsa Larsson and Stieg Larsson) and my interest tvåändsstickning (two-ended or twined) knitting. My interest in Sweden grew, so to come to Sweden was a dream come true. I knew that if I didn't visit the Ice Hotel while I was in Sweden, I would kick my own arse, so I made decided to visit for one day.

The Ice Hotel has a large reception area, a bar and lounge area, a chapel, and cold accommodation - all built of snow and ice. There is also more traditional hotel environments, including warm accommodation in chalets. The cold accommodation is more expensive than warm accommodation, and is an experience. There are different types of rooms - art rooms designed by different artists, featuring a unique bed and other furniture and decor; ice rooms featuring a large bed, two arm chairs and a small table and sculpture; and snow rooms featuring a large bed that could sleep probably four people. The rooms are accessed behind the reception area, and there are about six corridors that lead off from the great hall. The rooms are along the corridors, and each room has only a reindeer skin curtain as a door. Guests in the cold accommodation leave all their valuables and whatnot in a warm dressing room, and sleep in a thermal sleeping bag on a reindeer skin. The rooms are kept at -5 degrees Celsius. The rooms are available to be viewed by the public between 10 am and 6 pm daily, so you don't get to hang out for a long time in the rooms...but I am not sure you would want to! The rooms are cold and the beds look hard! I also found that smell of the reindeer skins pretty overpowering, even at -5.

I had a lovely room in a warm chalet, a blissful 23 degrees with all the amenities. I'm glad the cold accommodation wasn't available for the time period I booked, because I probably would have stayed in an ice room if I could but I probably had a better experience staying in a warm room! I am the person who sleeps with 4 blankets, including one heating blanket cranked to the maximum...let's be honest -- I would have been miserable in an ice room!

The ice hotel itself is stunning, and it is an incredible experience. I only stayed a day but if I had stayed longer, I could have signed up for some of the many activities that they organize, like dog sledding, snowmobile rides or ice sculpting. I had hoped to be able to take the Northern Lights tour but it was too hazy to see the norther lights the day I was there.

The other thing about going to the Ice Hotel is that you are about 145 km north of the Arctic Circle, which means in the winter there is a month when the sun never rises. When I was there, the "sun" "rose" from about 11:30 to 12:30 each day. I say "sun" and "rose" because you never actually see the sun rise, the day is just lighter than pitch black. It's quite disconcerting to be doing day things in the pitch black. It was totally fine for one day, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about much longer!

The Ice Hotel is located in the small town of Jukkasjärvi, which is about 17 km away from Kiruna, the airport that you fly into. I took an Ice Hotel bus transfer to get to the hotel (although you can book a private taxi, snowmobile or dog sled!). While I was at the Ice Hotel, I also walked around Jukkasjärvi village a bit, checking out the pretty houses, the Nutti Sámi Siida museum and reindeer camp, and the local church.

It was an awesome experience to visit Jukkasjärvi and the Ice Hotel! I'm not sure I would do it again, but I am so glad I did it this trip! I got to see a different side of Sweden than I saw in Skåne, the southern part of Sweden, where I spent most of my trip.

Ice Hotel, Jukkasjärvi - Part One

I've been doing a lot of travel the past two days to go to the Ice Hotel: from Malmö-Stockholm-Kiruna-Jukkasjärvi yesterday and back again today. I'm finally back "home" at Malmö base camp!



But it was totally worth it - it was an amazing experience.









The Ice Hotel looks great but it also tastes great!







And after such a lovely introduction to the Ice Hotel, I snuggled up in a nice warm bed - the cold accommodation was not available for the time frame I went up, but to be honest I prefer to be warm and not fall asleep shivering in minus five degree weather to the smell of reindeer skins.



Speaking of reindeer, yep, I ate reindeer along with bunny, fish eggs, and arctic char. The reindeer was tasty...as someone said on my Facebook page, ew, but at least I didn't eat Santa! But I totally would have if he'd been on the Ice Hotel menu; guaranteed they would have done something nice with him! I did feel a little guilty about eating the reindeer since I'd just come back from the Sami Museum and Reindeer Camp just up the road where I met and fed two lovely male reindeer...more about that in another post.

In the meantime, you can see a few Ice Hotel photos here. I'll post more photos to this set when I have a bit more time.

Helsingborg: Pearl of the Sound

I figured since I went to Helsinør, I might as well go to the city across the water: Helsingborg. It was lovely. I spent the morning there and then headed back to Lund where I met up with my new Swedish friends who I met on Ravelry!





Flinka Fingrar ladies, thank you for making my time in Sweden extra special!

I'm off to the Ice Hotel in Kiruna for the next two days. I'll post when I get back to Malmö as I'm not sure I have Internet access while I am there.

New Year's Day in Bjärsjölagård

I spent à lovely, quiet day in Bjärsjölagård with my new friends (and fur-friends)!



We went for a walk to see the Bjärsjölagård Slot.



As fancy as the Bjärsjölagård Slot is, I remain more impressed with my friend's knitting cottage! Really! How cool is that?

Farewell 2011 / Gott Nytt År

2011 was an interesting, challenging and beautiful year, and I can't think of a better way to celebrate it's departure than with my unexpected new friends from Bjärsjölagård, Sweden.

We met up in Lund for a completely unnecessary and yet necessary foray to a yarn store, and then I was invited back to spend New Year's with them in Bjärsjölagård, a very small town in Skåne.



Mattias aka "the master chef" made a lovely dinner, and then we enjoyed some bubbly under spectacular fireworks complements of the neighbours.



Thank you Carola and Mattias for your friendship and generous hospitality! I had a wonderful time with you! Happy new year!

Helsingør and København, Danmark

Exhuasted. Today I saw so much pretty. Danmark is extremely pretty. But I am starting to get overwhelmed by cobblestones, beautiful buildings and happy, blond children. I can't wait until I go to Kiruna - I'll bet there is nary a cobblestone in sight, and the Ice Hotel is only about three weeks old at this point. And since the per capita population up north is only 2 people per square kilometer, I think I can share the space with some happy munchkins...

I got up early so I could take the train to Helsingør, which is about 1.5 hours by train. The sunrise was beautiful today since it was a clear day (also decent hair day) for once.



The purpose of my visit was to see Kronberg Castle. Mission accomplished.





It has an interesting history, but I was especially intrigued by the casements - the two levels of underground rooms, tunnels and storage areas where up to 1000 of the castle inhabitants could live for six weeks if they were under seige and the castle was occupied. It wasn't pretty. But it was pretty interesting!



After visiting Helsingør, I took the train to København, and loosely followed the "one day" itinerary from the Lonely Planet Copenhagen Encounter. I got off the train in Nørreport, then visited the Statens Museum for Kunst where I particularly enjoyed the Danish and Scandinavian art collection as well as the Toulouse-Lautrec special exhibition.



Then I walked through the gardens of Kongens Have, past the Rosenborg Slot (didn't go into this castle; all up to *here* with castles and history and pretty today!), then explored the Kongens Nytorv and walked down Strøget to the Rådhus and Tivoli. Of course it got dark early so I have very few pictures from this later part of the day.











I sought water, refuge and sustenance from a beautiful little cupcake shop near Kongens Nytorv. It was a tasty cupcake: lots of raspberry flavor in the cake and a light cream cheese icing.



After my travels today, I was exhausted but decided to take my self to Bastard for dinner! I had such an excellent meal (cod with mussels) that I totally forgot to take pictures of the food before I inhaled it!

Tomorrow I'm not venturing as far - just heading up the road to Lund. Things are pretty much going to shut down everywhere until Monday because of New Year's. I'm not sure how I want to spend tomorrow night - I was thinking Copenhagen but I don't think I'll go back there - I didn't love it as much as I thought I would.

Ystad: Jewel of the Baltic

Today I was blessed with sun, good food and an extremely lovely locale in which to spend my day. I was supposed to go to Ystad to go yarn shopping with my new knitter friends, but one of my new friends was in a car accident yesterday so they weren't able to go. Fortunately, she is in stable condition now!

But since I had bought my train ticket, I decided to still visit Ystad, and am so glad I did. It is an absolutely beautiful town, dating back to the 13th century give or take. I didn't get to enjoy the beaches - it was a brutishly windy and cold day! - but I think this would be a great place to come back to in the summer. Ystad is on southern tip of Sweden, on the edge of the Baltic sea, and you can take a ferry to a Danish island or to Poland (I was tempted but it's a 10 hour journey).



In addition so seeing so many beautiful, old buildings, including the St Maria Church and the St Petri Curch and Monastery, I also enjoyed checking out the sites frequented by the fictional police detective Kurt Wallander from the Henning Mankell books. These books are probably what really cemented my desire to visit Sweden, and Skäne in particular. Wallander lived and worked in Ystad, and there are many specific references to existing locations throughout the town and surrounding area - such as the Intercontinental Hotel, or Fridolf's cafe where he often goes to have a quiet coffee. I stopped at Fridolf's to have a piece of Wallander cake, which is dyed blue the colour of the police uniform.



I couldn't finish the cake because I'd already had a really tasty pink Danish when I popped into Maria Konditori to seek refuge from the abusive wind! And I tried to have lunch at the Intercontinental, where Wallander often had lunch, but it was closed for the season. So I took a chance and had a delightful and tasty lunch at Store Thor, built in the only surviving medieval town hall cellar. Beer and food were served here as early as the 15th century. I had fish soup, fried bread and mayo (apparently they serve everything with mayo here, which is ok with me), and I paired it with a Skäne Akavit (which was not too great but warmed me up from the inside out).







What I am starting to appreciate about eating in Sweden, while you do not get table service in the same way as you do in North America (you order and pay like at a cafeteria but you serve yourself except for the main which is delivered to you) is that the price of your meal includes help-yourself items like lingonberry juice, water, light beer, bread, tea and coffee, sometimes salad even. It is very civilized. And the price is the price, no tax or tip. Refreshing.

Today someone who didn't have to say hi to me (like people I buy stuff from who are friendly when they serve me) actually said hi. Actually he said hej which is Swedish for hi.I almost had a heart attack, I was so surprised. It's not that the people here aren't nice, they are just extremely reserved and not at all outgoing or friendly to people they don't know, which makes for a disconcerting experience for me. I feel like I am at a silent retreat. (For the record, I won't EVER be choosing to do that!)

I've been debating (with myself of course) what other destinations to visit...I think Copenhagen tomorrow and maybe Saturday. And maybe Göteborg on Sunday. I expect because of the holiday and Sunday/Monday, I'll have limited opens to do indoor things until next week, so I plan to go to places I can just walk around in. There are a couple more things I can do in Malmö, and I still want to go back to Lund to see Kulturen. Oh, decisions, decisions!

In which I catch up

Typical. Day four into my trip and I've already fallen behind on my daily blogging. Whatever; it's my holiday and I can do what I want to! This is what I have been up to for the past couple of days...

I have a good excuse for yesterday - it was a jam-packed, excellent day! In the morning I went to Lund which is about 100,000 people (compared to Malmo which is about 300,000). It's about a blink of an eye north of Malmo and takes minutes to get there on the train. Luckily my hotel is right beside Malmo Central Station (have I mentioned how much I love this place?), so I rolled out of bed and onto the train, and in less time than it would have taken me to walk to my TTC stop on Queen Street, I was in a very lovely town.

I had heard that Lund was nice but I was not prepared for how much I would love it! It is a university town, with over 40,000 of the 100,000 population being involved with the university. Now I didn't see the university; I spent time exploring some of the old part of the city where the Lund Cathedral is located as well as the Historical Museum. There are so many beautiful, old buildings - everywhere I turned I was enchanted by what I saw. And it's probably redundant to say it's an old part of the city - there is so much history here, EVERYTHING is old!





The Cathedral was spectacular, although I was disappointed the crypt was closed. I took some exterior shots in the rain, not realizing I had raindrops on my lens as well as my glasses and the viewfinder, so later when the rain FINALLY abated, I took some shots in the sun.





I also had time to visit the Historical Museum, which was pretty interesting. Especially the Cabinet of Curiosities.





I also liked the model of the Horological clock, the actual of which is right next door in the Lund Cathedral.



It was pouring rain when I arrived in Lund, and it was pretty early when I started exploring, so not much was open. I am definitely going to go back to Lund -- I really wanted to see the open air museum called Kulturen, which is about 30 historical buildings in a city block that are open to the public and recreate an earlier period of time (not sure which one exactly - Swedish history goes waaaay back). I walked around the outside of Kulturen and took a peak at what I could but it's definitely worth a trip back...on a sunny day...when Kulturen is open.





I also had a lovely chai latte and spinach pie and got warm and dry at Wayne's Coffee House. it's my new favourite coffee chain in Sweden, better than the Espresso House. I am sure there is better coffee, but these places are plentiful and handy when you need to retreat from the endless drizzle. And yes, I have really, really bad hair here. It might have a lovely curl but you can't see it under all the frizz.



That probably sounds like a full day, but my day was still not done; the best was yet to come. But what happens in Vegas/Veberod/Bjarsjolagard stays in Vegas/Veberod/Bjarsjolagard! I met some lovely ladies from Ravelry, who welcomed me into their knitting group and knit night at one of their homes. I had such a great time getting to know them, and spending time with them, and learned a lot more about Sweden and it's lovely people, food, history and language. And as a special treat I got to try something I really wanted to try while I was here - a homemade traditional Swedish dish called Jansson's Temptation which is basically (caveat: this description is for the Canadians reading the blog; it is NOT how Swedish people would describe this dish lol) a scalloped potato pie with anchovies. It is delicious! Before I segue into my food diatribe, I will just say I had a wonderful time with my new Swedish friends, and am so grateful for their hospitality and awesome company. (And really, I can knit - and count - despite all evidence to the contrary yesterday!)

I am planning to explore more of the southern area of Sweden called Skane which is very accessible by train or buses. I had a lot of help but I am starting to get the hang of the Skanetrafiken train and bus system...here's the last leg of my journey "home" to Malmo last night from Lund.



It has been very hard to find good Swedish food here - mostly because of the season, very little has been open. And while there are some restaurants in central Malmo catering to traditional Swedish food, I haven't been able to get to one of these places yet, but if I wanted a Whopper or Chinese food or hot dog, no problem! Amber had already scoped out the food situation at my hotel, and as she thought might be the case, the breakfast is excellent. Despite wanting to sleep in past sunrise today (let's be honest, that's not as bad as it sounds because the sun rises after 8:30 am and goes down about 3:30 at this time of year), I still got up and dragged my lazy butt downstairs because I figured it would be the best food I might get today! And I called that! I did have some delicious $15/90SEK mushroom soup today but it's price tag greatly detracted from the yummy factor!

Speaking of food, as I write this I am sitting in a so-called gastropub. Silly me, I thought there would be actual food, good food. That's what usually earns the label gastropub in my experience. Apparently I need to scale back my expectations, because the food is not plenteous - I have four options, the cheapest and most exotic of which (all non-Swedish too) is fish and chips with mushy peas for 175SEK. I just cannot pay almost $30 for fish and chips, which is not something I normally eat anyway. Also for $30 I want someone to haul their butt over to my table and serve me, but they want me to order at the bar. So it's a Mexican standoff. I'll go up for a beer (it's only 4 feet away and I am drinking a nice local beer from Lund) but I won't go up for food that is expensive and not particularly enticing. I will haul my tired self over the My Favourite Place (aka Malmo Central Station...have you been paying attention?!?) and see what I can find. Guaranteed if I spend 175SEK I'll be getting two bags of groceries from the Co-op, including several cider in which to drown my indignation. And 175SEK in my world will last for at least three days of groceries (keeping in mind I have limited options since I have no fridge or utensil (okay, I may have lifted some from downstairs) but I still have no fridge or heating implements so I have limited options which may make it pricier).



It's a wacky world where you talk about the end of your day but not the beginning or anything in between. But whatever, here we are all the same, assuming you are still reading...

(Aside here: I just went up to the bar to order another beer as I am parched - writing is very thirsty work - and saw how packed this bar is...it must be the beer and not the food, that's all I'm saying!!! Come to think of it, I haven't seen or smelled any food, so I think the train station is a better call for food at this point, assuming I am still peckish after drinking this quite hearty beer...)

Anyway, today was a quiet day. My hotel is in the Docklands north of the train station, so I explored the docklands and Western Harbour this morning. It was windy and raining and foggy, but that's no different than any other day really, so I struck out at the ass crack of dawn (aka 8:30 am) in search of the Turning Torso, a condominium tour that rotates 90 degrees from the base to the top of the 54th floor. I was also hoping to see the Kogg Musuem but it was closed for the season (koggs are medieval trading vessels; you know my obsession with boats!). I kind of knew where it was, more or less, since I could just barely see it in the "rising sun" from my hotel window (if you squint and look really closely you can see it just about the red brick building where I am sitting writing this blog post in the afore maligned Green Lion pub).



The Turning Torso was elusive as it kept getting lost in the fog, but I persevered until I located it. I had to laugh when I found it. If you're from Toronto, you'll know why instantly.



Then I walked down to St Peter's Church since I hadn't seen it during the day or when it wasn't pouring rain.



Then I did a little more exploring in Lilla Torg; I saw a great show at the Form/Design Centre of 1960s and 1970s music poster art, called Mindblowing - an excellent show! I was finally able go into some of the shops I had previously seen which had been closed for the holidays, like The Spice Tree (which I could buy very little at since I couldn't bring it back but it was fun all the same).



I also found a restaurant I might try if the gods and stars align in terms of it's openness and my availability. The other one I'd like to try is closed until January 9 or 10 like many stores and businesses here.





After that I went to the contemporary art gallery called the Malmo Konsthall and saw the two current exhibitions of Gerhard Nordstrom and Francisco Goya. That's where I had the tasty but overpriced mushroom soup. It's possible that it's not overpriced and just seems that way because of how high the numbers are in Swedish Krona. This is probably a good thing for me, because the prices sound so high they are scary and for once I am motivated to be mindful if what I am spending!

We're now full circle, so since that's all I did...then that's all I wrote!