Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Right at the trailheads,
Suomen Latu Kiilopää
(Fell Centre Kiilopää; 016-670-0700;
www.kiilopaa.fi
;
Kiilopääntie;s/d summer €74/82, winter €96/128, dm €30, tent site €25; Nov-Apr
& Jun-Sep; )
is an excellent facility. It has bikes, camping and skiing equipment
(best to book) for hire, and can arrange guided treks. Outlying buildings hold simple, com-
fortable hotel rooms; a hostel with OK bunks (HI discount) and a small kitchen; and a
variety of cottages and apartments starting at €74/114 for a two-/four-person apartment in
summer. You can camp here too.
There's a cafe-restaurant (packed lunch €8, dinner €23) and traditional
smoke sauna
that's fired up regularly (check times online); it costs €10 and is often free to those staying.
Several daily buses do the one-hour trip between Ivalo and Kiilopää; a bus meets every
incoming flight to Ivalo airport. If you are travelling by bus from Rovaniemi, check
whether the bus runs to Kiilopää: some do, some don't.
Kakslauttanen
Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort
HOTEL, IGLOO
( 016-667-100;
www.kakslauttanen.fi
;
s/d cabin winter from €292/354, s/d snow igloo €285/380,
s/d/f glass igloo €388/470/854; )
This large accommodation complex has a variety of comfortable log cabins, much cheaper
in summer. In winter it's the site of an igloo village (November to April). The romance:
you get the chance to watch the aurora borealis from the luxury of your own bed. The
downside: you'd expect much more luxury and charm for the price, which seems to in-
crease astronomically every year.
There are traditional snow igloos (warm sleeping bag provided) as well as rows of glass
igloos, which are by no means luxurious or spacious but are heated and have a tiny toilet
cubicle. Family-sized ones include a shower. Don't expect even one-star service. You are
forced to eat in the hotel's worse-than-mediocre restaurant.
West of the hotel, Santa's Home, a wooden building, opens in winter, with reindeer,
elves and the old man himself in attendance.
Kakslauttanen is on Rd 4, 11km south of Saariselkä. Kiilopää is 6km east of it. All
north- and southbound buses will stop here on request.
