Sierra and Kade now get the first week of January off- after opening presents on Christmas day, we headed out on the 26th to the Icehotel in Sweden. Kade really wanted to see the Northern Lights; The Icehotel is located near the town of Kiruna, just above the Arctic Circle and is often a good location to do this. The hotel itself is rebuilt every winter using ice from the nearby Torne River and is quite spectacular. We stayed overnight; the temperature in the rooms hovers in the low 20’s. There’s little variation since the sun never rises above the horizon at this time of year and there are only 3-4 hours of twilight per day. It was unseasonably warm (outside temperatures were also about 20) – a couple of weeks earlier it had been 40 below.
We didn’t see the Northern Lights- there was no discharge the one clear night we were up there- but we did most everything else: dog and reindeer sledding, cross country skiing, and snowmobiling. We were there over New Year’s, so there were also fireworks, and they gave us paper lanterns to light and release into the sky.
Kiruna is the site of the world’s largest underground iron mine, so there is good air service to Stockholm. We stopped in London on the way out and Paris on the way back, where the kids did the usual touristy things: London Eye, Tower of London, London Bridge, a play in the West End, British Museum, Eiffel Tower, Mona Lisa, TGV (high speed train), Impressionists, skeletons in the Catacombs, and the Paris sewer tour.