Ice Hotels · Four Hotels
All four are winter sites in Finnish Lapland, at Levi, in Rovaniemi and at the foot of Yllas, and each is built so that one warm room sits at the middle of a cold place. In two of them that room is a bath and pool house, in one a hall with a kitchen, in one a fireplace lounge in a timber building.
15 Levi Hotel Spa
Levi, Finland
A winter site at the foot of the fell, where the bath house is the middle
The Room They Share
This is a winter site at Levi, and the building that holds it together is not the lobby but the bath and pool house. Pools, saunas and changing rooms occupy their own wing, reached from inside the hotel, and the accommodation buildings are arranged around it. The route from the rooms to the slope passes it.
Who Turns Up
Published material describes the spa as open to visitors as well as to hotel guests, so people staying in cabins and apartments across Levi use the same water. In the dark months this is where the day ends for most of them, and everyone arrives already undressed for it.
What The Room Makes Possible
A bath house works as a shared room because nobody brings anything into it, and there is nothing to do in it but be in the water. Heat sets the length of a visit rather than any timetable, so people leave in ones and twos.
Say It At The Desk
Say at the desk which building your room is in, because the walk to the bath house differs a good deal between them.
Filed in · February 2028
16 Hullu Poro
Levi, Finland
A winter house in the village, built around a hall the village walks into
The Room They Share
At the centre of this winter house in Levi village is a single large hall with a kitchen serving it directly and a raised end used for performances. The hall is entered from the village street and not through the accommodation, and the rooms sit in wings around it. Its tables are long and set in rows.
Who Turns Up
Published descriptions have the hall serving the village as well as the house, which in a fell resort means residents, seasonal workers and people staying elsewhere in Levi. Guests come down into a room already occupied by people who did not sleep in the building and will not.
What The Room Makes Possible
Because the kitchen opens straight onto the hall, eating and everything else happen in the same volume with no door between them. The tables are long enough that a small group has to sit at one that is already partly taken.
Say It At The Desk
Ask at the desk which door is open in the evening, since the street entrance and the hotel entrance are not the same.
Filed in · February 2028
17 Hotel Santa Claus
Rovaniemi, Finland
A winter house in the middle of town, a ground floor open to town
The Room They Share
In central Rovaniemi the hotel puts its whole common part on the ground floor and opens it to the street, so the restaurant, the bar and the reception occupy one continuous level. The accommodation is above. Anyone walking in from the town square arrives in the same room as somebody coming down with a key.
Who Turns Up
That ground floor is published as serving the town, not only the house, and Rovaniemi is a working city rather than a resort village. Local trade, arriving travellers and people waiting for late transport are described as using it across the same hours in the dark part of the year.
What The Room Makes Possible
Keeping reception on the same level as the tables means there is no lobby to wait in separately, and waiting is done sitting among people who are eating. The street doors are glazed, so the room is visible from outside before anyone enters.
Say It At The Desk
Tell the desk if your flight lands late, because the ground floor and the front doors keep different hours in winter.
Filed in · January 2028
18 Yllas Humina
Akaslompolo, Finland
A timber winter house below the fell, where there is one fire, one long room
The Room They Share
Timber building, one storey of common space, and in it a lounge with an open fireplace at one end. The room runs long rather than wide, seating is set along it, and the fire is the only thing in it that is fixed. Accommodation is in rooms and apartments off the same building. This is a winter site.
Who Turns Up
Published material describes the lounge as the common room for the whole house at Akaslompolo, at the foot of Yllas, used by guests coming in from the trails and by people waiting for transport out. Ski traffic sets the hours: the room fills in the afternoon and empties early.
What The Room Makes Possible
A fire at one end of a long room decides where people sit without anyone arranging it, and wet outdoor clothing ends up near it as well. Because the seating faces the fire rather than the middle, people sit alongside each other rather than opposite.
Say It At The Desk
Say at the desk where you plan to leave skis, as the drying room and the lounge door are on different sides.
Filed in · January 2028
The shared room at each hotel is described from published material, in our own words. Nothing here is a programme, a promise about the people you will meet, or a claim about how any evening will go, and the month at the end of an entry is when that material was last opened.
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