Kirkenes Snow Hotel

A visit to Kirkenes is a very special experience: here you really feel like you are at the frontier of Europe! Just outside the isolated town of Kirkenes, surrounded by Arctic tundra, is the Kirkenes Snowhotel.

Rebuilt from blocks of ice from the neighbouring lake every November since 2006, the Snow Hotel is different every year.

Here you can experience sleeping in a room made of snow, on a bed of ice! There might not be under-floor heating, but snow is a very good insulator, when it is minus thirty degrees outside it will still be relatively warm inside the Snowhotel, a stable minus five degrees celsius.

Every room in Kirkenes Snowhotel is different. The rooms are five metres in diameter, and although the beds are framed by ice blocks and they do have comfortable mattresses with thermal insulation on top. You sleep inside a sleeping bag especially made for sub-zero camping. The rooms have curtains instead of doors, so air can circulate and the rooms do not melt. Each room is decorated with sculptures made from ice and snow, created by artists from China no less!