Sweden's ice hotel is a cool place to chill

A file picture from 2012 showing guests at the ice hotel in Jukkasjarvi, Sweden. The hotel gets a new design and is reconstructed every year, and is dependent upon constant sub-freezing temperatures during construction and operation. — AFP

High above the Arctic Circle and nestled in the snow-dusted forests of northern Sweden, gaggles of tourists gathered on a February morning for a glimpse of hallways, bedrooms and a wedding chapel sculpted from ice, part of the 30th incarnation of Sweden’s ice hotel.

Stopping in blue-white hallways to take snaps of a chandelier and ornately decorated bedrooms entirely carved from ice, the tourists are among the 50,000 day visitors to the hotel every year, founded in 1989 by a hotelier looking to attract visitors to the remote town of Jukkasjarvi, 200km north of the Arctic Circle.