FINLAND: Snow Hotel and Snow mobile safari and Auroral Borealis!

Some of our intrepid travelers bellying up to the bar of the snow hotel

Entrance to Narnia

 

 

Departure for the iconic Snowhotel which is a 30 minute drive south to the lake shore at Lethojarvi.  The entire (huge structure) was carved completely from ice.  The B&R literature likened this to a trip to the legendary Narnia.  It was dream like and magical with intricate carvings and skillfully placed colored lights.  Some tourists opt to spend the night here and imbibe in the ice bar.  Not our group.

 

 

Wall sculptures adorned the passageways

one of the many unique bedrooms with a fur cover for the bed

The ice restaurant for those who stayed the night

Another bedroom

 After the magical tour of the snow hotel, our group headed over to a salmon dinner at the Kota Restaurant.  We were driving the snow sleds afterward so no wine for us!  

 

After dinner, the guides herded us over to our eco friendly snowmobiles and the adventure began. Oh, first they dressed us in multiple layers of arctic wear because we were going to be traveling at night and going relatively fast.  Think of riding a motorcycle in temperatures reaching 30 below zero!  Yep, it was that cold.  More on that later.

 

We commenced our snow mobile caravan in search of Aurora Borealis.  In retrospect, this was the highlight of the entire trip for me and I could say it was a highlight of my bucket list, too.  We rode through the evergreen forest laden with snow, under a crystal clear sky and a full sized amber moon.  We traveled several miles until we came to another Sami Kota way out in a remote area.  Thankfully, there was a blazing fire within and we all gladly gathered around the fire for our lesson on the physics behind this phenomenon, a talk given by another descendant of the Sami.  They plied us with more of that hot glogi berry juice and gave us campfire sticks reminiscent of what we Americans generally use to cook marsh mellows over an open fire.  They gave each of us a bread dough to wrap around the stick that we were then instructed to hold over the fire.  Delicious!  

 

After we had warmed up a bit and finished our dessert of hot juice and toasted dough, it was time to head back to the lodge and prayerfully get a glimpse of the great northern lights,  WHICH WE DID!  Unfortunately, the berry juice was a diuretic and most of us were dying to shed the arctic astronaut suits.  It was so bad that I considered getting frost bite of the tush just to get some relief.

 

Matti, our guide giving us lessons on the northern lights

 

One of our first glimpses of Aurora Borealis

 A most wonderful and memorable day!