http://RealAdventures.com/vacations/12585_gotaland-sweden.htm Check out some of the recently updated travel & vacation listings on RealAdventures. Be inspired, go explore! en-us Sat, 28 Nov 2009 01:59:48 GMT Sat, 28 Nov 2009 01:59:48 GMT http://RealAdventures.com http://RealAdventures.com/vacations/12585_gotaland-sweden.htm 100 100 http://RealAdventures.com/listings/1187738_Hunting-at-Gotestorp http://RealAdventures.com/listings/1187738_Hunting-at-Gotestorp Hunting Sweden Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:01:12 There are excellent opportunities for hunting on the estate. Rich wildlife consisting of Elk, Fox, Deer, Hare and Wild Boar as well as bird hunting such as pheasant and wild turkey.There are also possibilities of guided tour hunting. -
There are excellent opportunities for hunting on the estate. Rich wildlife consisting of Elk, Fox, Deer, Hare and Wild Boar as well as bird hunting such as pheasant and wild turkey.There are also possibilities of guided tour hunting.



Details & Reservations: Hunting at Gotestorp
RealAdventures | Sweden Hunting

]]> http://RealAdventures.com/listings/1024443_The-Bigger-Chill http://RealAdventures.com/listings/1024443_The-Bigger-Chill Articles Sweden Thu, 08 Jan 2004 00:01:00 On being kissed by a herring and other activities at Sweden's Ishtollet, Arctic Circle. -
On being kissed by a herring and other activities at Sweden's Ishtollet, Arctic Circle.


by Skip Kaltenheuser

For those feeling winterdeprived, Sweden&8217s Ishotellet, or Ice Hotel, can get them winter wholesale. The hotel sits a hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle in the Lapland town of Jukkasjarvi, which translates as "meeting place" and has served as a crossroads for nomads in the wilderness since the 1500s. Each year, the hotel resurrects a giant igloo compound adjacent to the hotel&8217s small village of permanent bungalows and restaurant.

Originally a whimsical addon to lure winter visitors, the frozen structure &8211 composed of 30,000 tons of snow and 1,200 tons of ice spread over 4,000 square meters &8211 is now the main draw. Last year, over 3,000 visitors earned certificates proving they&8217d stayed overnight within frozen walls &8211 most retreat to the bungalow cabins after one night &8211 and 20,000 more toured during the day. &8220If you build it, they will come,&8221 was the advice in &8220Field of Dreams.&8221 Business grows with the speed of an Arctic wolf pack.

Intrepid travelers eventually arrive somewhere pondering if they&8217ve gone too far around the bend. Engulfed in latenight silence, the Ishotellet qualified for me. Atop reindeer skins on an ice block, surrounded by snowwhite walls and a high, domed ceiling, I fumbled with a jammed sleeping bag zipper, a slight panic simmering at my hotel room temperature of minus five degrees Celsius.

That&8217s cozy, compared to outside temperatures that can plunge to minus 35 degrees Celsius. In a &8220heat wave,&8221 it can be colder in the hotel than outside, adding irony to the endoftheworld feel. With my eye on the coveted certificate, I was determined not to be among those who bail out early. My zipper finally unjammed, I warmed to the comforting candles, ubiquitous in Sweden as talismans against winter depression. Shadows danced into dreams tinted with the blue glow from the dense river ice artists carve into furniture, sculptures and high relief wall murals.

Dreams were fissured, but more pleasant than the nightmare vision of Kurt Vonnegut&8217s novel, &8220Cat&8217s Cradle,&8221 I feared would visit. In it, man&8217s ultimate &8220bad chemical&8221 escapes into the world, turning all water solid at warm temperatures and all mankind into frozen statuary.

Like a fugitive snowman, the Ishotellet will disappear with a May meltdown under the midnight sun. Construction begins in October, and the 1998 incarnation, the ninth, opens in December. High season, all sculpting complete, runs from midJanuary through April. A former mining engineer, Nils Yngve Bergqvist, cooked up this roadside attraction in the heated delirium frequented by the local, looselydefined &8220Swedish Sauna Academy,&8221 which despite
its official airs is basically a bunch of chummy townfolk sitting around quaffing beers amid hot, steaming rocks. Their motto &8220In sauna veritas&8221 &8211 the truth lies in the sauna.

Hotelprovided eveningwear, also suitable for snowmobiling, creates a resemblance to astronauts with fur helmets, a fashion provided by sled dogs past their prime. The novelty is popular with Asians, including Japanese women seeking adventure far from corporate headquarters. However, companies provide a stream of guests for unique retreats and local conference halls, as the Ishotellet now makes the lists of company incentive trips that reward workers &8211 or selectively punish them if their mummy bag zippers are sabotaged.

During my visit, employees and advertising clients of a Danish business magazine held court during opening night in the hotel&8217s Absolut Ice Bar, arguably the coolest pub in the world. No jacket required, for a few minutes, if one has just been superheated in a sauna. Theoretically, after a sauna one even has a brief window of opportunity to create a bar legend by wearing shorts or swimsuit, dancing to calypso music, quaffing a drink and leaving quickly before convulsive shivers hit, but I could get no takers.

Absolut's signature bottle silhouette is a carved entrance in a wall of ice blocks, through which the bartender glides with her stock on a little push sled. Roomtemperature drinks are a different context. The favored libation is vodka in hot lingonberry juice. The cold version, served in glasses made of ice, is called &8220varglass,&8221 or wolf&8217s paw. The wages of sin for too many shakes of the paw are late night sprints to the heated bathrooms outside the ice complex (you were expecting plumbing in rooms of ice?). It&8217s a sprint worthy of a certificate.

Bar patrons get a bit giddy sitting &8220on the rocks.&8221 I overheard one lovely Swedish joke, in Greta Garbo voice, &8220Are you alone ...a re you lonely?&8221 The Danes, cameras flashing, were in high spirits as they downed the same. The next morning, loading a 5 a.m. bus to beat a snowstorm to their plane, missing their sauna thaw and country breakfast, they appeared shocked, as if kissed by a herring.

In addition to the bar and 40 sleeping chambers with two to eight beds, the Ice Hotel offerings include a chapel for weddings and, for infants with &8220is&8221 (ice) in their names, christenings a slideshow cinema 40 variouslysized sleeping chambers a surrealistic courtyard of ice sculptures and an art gallery. The gallery, with striking images mounted on translucent walls of ice, currently pays tribute to Japanese wildlife photographer Michio Hoshino, recently killed by a Russian grizzly.

The Ishotellet&8217s fine, noniced restaurant offers standout moose, reindeer, salmon and fowl dishes and a fine wine selection, with adjacent sauna and steam rooms. A traditional, hot rock sauna is outside. Rooms, iced or in cabins, range from $7590 per person.

Design options for a perfect day of travel escapes include snowmobile or dogsled expeditions across frozen lakes and eerie forests, moose barbecues, crosscountry skiing, reindeer sleigh rides and visits to a Laplander outpost and reindeer herd. Steer clear of springfed lakes reindeer won&8217t trod on, or risk becoming part of the Ice Hotel.

One chef in a rustic cabin outpost refueled my snowbobile group after a brutal snowball fight, serving up grilled moose, reindeer sausage and salmon bisque that made the lips quiver. He recounted Seinfeld television episodes, their rerun humor finding surprising resonance in Lapland. How far does one have to go to escape?

The frozen walls concept is as novel to area Laplanders as to visitors. They never regarded igloos as a hot idea. Even the kata, their traditional wigwamlike structure of poles covered with turf, is reserved for outposts that tend reindeer herds. Or for smoking the tourists. Welcome as the Lapp&8217s cheeseflavored, campfire cooked coffee is, visitors&8217 heads invariably move toward the circular shelter&8217s outer perimeter floor in search of air. Real living has long been in modern houses designed with Swedish efficiency, reminding travelers that &8220native culture&8221 is often what people do until they can afford not to.

But as our Lapp tour guide, in colorful traditional garb stitched by his girlfriend, lassoed recalcitrant reindeer, our imaginations quickly pegged us as rugged survivors of the deep North. Kneeling with reins in hand, we were startled by the strength and speed one reindeer could muster for a oneperson sleigh. Reindeer don&8217t look particularly bright, but it was difficult not to suspect a hidden slyness beneath the long antlers after a sudden sprint and sharp turn during a deep dip threw one rider into a snow drift, ending any fantasies of being the Ben Hur of the North.

At night, I hopped a dogsled ride and sped across the lakes and into the woods for coffee at a sled waystation. The exhilaration of happy, yelping dogs is contagious. They live to run, the colder the better, but don&8217t keep them waiting once they are hooked up and revving their engines. The dogs don&8217t take offense at their riders&8217 suspicious fur hats. They are well cared for, their masters taking it very easy during the &8220heat wave&8221 and putting booties on the dogs if the snow crystals are sharp.

My guide was champion dogsledder Taisto Thorneus, who once held a Europe mainland record with a 1,700kilometer dogsled expedition across Scandinavian mountains. The dogs&8217 responsiveness to their musher&8217s numerous subtle vocalizations commanding their gait and direction bordered on the metaphysical. A ride across a lake under a moonlit sky or aurora borealis, the continuing, subtle crush of snow framing the silence, is to be treasured.

Some like it cool.


As the climate warms, the Ishotellet&8217s wooden cabins house river rafters and folks exploring thousands of pristine lakes, glaciers and a mountain range. Also nearby is the world&8217s largest underground iron mine and a rocket station.

The Ishotellet in Jukkasjarvi (YOU&8217kusyairvee) Email at reception@jukkas.se, or visit their website at www.jukkas.se. Most people come by jeep or dogsled from nearby Kiruna Airport, flying from Stockholm.

Skip Kaltenheuser, a writer in Washington, D.C., has thawed.
Details & Reservations: The Bigger Chill
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