It could be any standard hotel room in the quaint northeastern Dutch city of Zwolle, with a bed, a minibar, bathrobes and two pairs of slippers. Except for the room temperature, which hovers just above freezing.
Welcome to the first Dutch ice hotel, all the comforts at 8°C.
“If you take a shower before bed, make sure your hair is dry or it will freeze. Do not drink too much alcohol, or eat too heavy a meal. Make sure you change clothes before entering the room,” hotel manager Annet van Limburg told first-time visitors.
Photo: AFP
Laughing a little nervously, Luc van Heijst and Maya Zhang, both 42, listened carefully to her advice, their luggage stuffed with several pairs of pants, sweaters, gloves and hats.
“No, I’m not afraid, but I am still a little nervous,” said Van Heijst, from Veghel, an hour-and-a-half drive to the south.
“We came for the experience,” he said, adding: “I feel like a little boy.”
Built for an ice sculptors’ festival in Zwolle and managed by a local hotel, the structure has three rooms and stands in a refrigerated warehouse, where the temperature hovers between 6°C and 8°C, depending on the number of visitors.
It is the first time in Europe that an ice hotel has opened this far south, Van Limburg said. Indeed, the idea comes from the north.
With some 47 rooms for this season, the largest ice hotel is at Jukkasjarvi in northern Sweden’s Lapland.
“Unlike Canada and Lapland, the hotel here is not situated in nature,” Van Limburg said, pointing out: “There, the guests sleep in minus-20 degrees.”
Inside, abstract patterns carved from the ice adorn the 1m-thick walls of two of the rooms. A third has a nautical theme, including a giant shell carved into its ice. A thick black curtain serves as a door.
Carved from a solid ice block, like a giant ice cube, the room’s main attraction is a square bed, which lights up in pink, blue and green lights through lamps -installed underneath in its ice.
It took about 10 days to build the three rooms, where guests can stay from Dec. 3 to Jan. 29. A night for two including breakfast will cost 199 euros (US$259).
“It’s not dangerous if you’re healthy,” Van Limburg said.
However, just in case, a room at a real hotel was set aside in case guests change their minds and a free taxi ride there was provided.
The following morning, visitors Van Heijst and Zhang seemed not to have suffered to much from their frosty experience.
“I wore three pairs of pants,” Van Heijst laughed, adding: “I almost got too hot.”
“It was a nice experience, but it’s definitely for one night only,” Van Heijst said. “And definitely not for a holiday. We won’t go to Lapland, now that’s for sure.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS