Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
which to take in Kiruna's goings-on, with an outside
terrace
and lingonberries (155kr).
Mon-Thurs 6pm-midnight,
Fri & Sat 6pm-2am, Sun 6-11pm.
Safari
Geologgatan 4
T
0980 174 60.
A charming café with
elegant wallpaper and wooden floors that's easily the best
choice in town for tea, coffee, sandwiches, salads and baked
potatoes, with outdoor seating in summer and a curiously
continental feel.
Mon-Fri 9am-6pm, Sat 10am-4pm.
Thai Take Away
Föreningsgatan 17
T
0980 608 44.
Sourcing fresh ingredients inside the Arctic Circle is not
easy, but this Thai eat-in restaurant manages to serve up
some decent dishes, albeit lacking the fire of the original. A
good selection of vegetarian (95kr) and meat mains, such
as green pork curry, from 125kr, though the lunch buffet is
arguably the best deal.
Daily 11am-10pm.
9
in
summer.
Mon-Fri
11am-6pm,
Sat
11am-4pm.
Landströms Kök & Bar
Föreningsgatan 11
T
0980
133 55.
A good place to look for some traditional northern
home-cooking dishes such as topside of elk, stewed
reindeer with mushrooms, smoked whitefish with capers
and cured grilled salmon - reckon on 150-225kr per main
course.
Mon, Tues & Thurs 6-11pm, Wed 6pm-
midnight, Fri & Sat 6pm-1am.
Mommas
Lars Janssonsgatan 15
T
0980 39 86 07.
Inside the
Scandic Ferrum
hotel, this American-style
steakhouse with wooden booths, serves up good burgers
(150kr), steaks (220kr) and sautéed reindeer with mash
Jukkasjärvi village
An obvious destination for any tourist travelling around Kiruna in winter is the tiny village
of
JUKKASJÄRVI
(known locally simply as “Jukkas”), 17km east of Kiruna and 200km
north of the Arctic Circle, and the location for Swedish Lapland's blockbuster attraction:
Icehotel
. What's effectively the world's largest igloo,
Icehotel
is built every year by the side
of the Torneälven River in late October, from when it stands proudly until temperatures
rise definitively above zero in May, and it finally melts away back into the river.
Although
Icehotel
totally dominates tiny Jukkasjärvi from its position at the entrance
to the village, it's worth taking a stroll down the main (and only) road, Marknadsvägen,
passing a handful of simple dwellings owned by locals - not all of whom are in favour
of the changes that the hotel has brought to their village.
Icehotel
Marknadsvägen 63 •
T
0980 668 00,
W
icehotel.com
The brains behind
Icehotel
belong to Yngve Bergqvist, a southern Swede who moved
to Lapland in the 1980s. In 1989, he built an igloo - barely sixty square metres in size
- as an art gallery to showcase local
Sámi
crafts and design. Visitors asked to sleep in
the igloo, and the concept was born. Today, covering a colossal 5000 square metres,
Icehotel
is constructed of thirty thousand tonnes of snow and four thousand tonnes of
ice (cut from the Torne River); its exact shape and design changes from year to year,
though there's always a chapel, in which couples can marry. From the entrance hall
there's usually one main walkway filled with ice
sculptures
, from which smaller
corridors lead off to the bedrooms and suites (all with electric lights, and beds made
out of blocks of compact snow covered with reindeer hides) that make up the bulk of
the hotel.
Staying in the hotel
There are two reception areas - one for cold accommodation (
Icehotel
itself ) and
another for warm accommodation (double rooms and cabins); simply follow the
direction signs. Staff in the cold reception will dish out warm clothing and general
information about how to survive a night in sub-zero temperatures. When it's time
to go to bed, you should leave your valuables and most of your clothes in lockers
provided close to reception (where there are also heated bathrooms with showers and
a sauna) and then make a run for it from here to your room (wearing as little as
possible; see p.342) and dive into your sleeping bag as quickly as you can - the
temperature inside the hotel is -5ºC, outside it's generally around -20 or -30ºC.
Guests are provided with specially made, tried-and-tested
sleeping bags
of a type
used by the Swedish army, who have used the hotel for Arctic survival training; the
