The one I chose was in Engelberg, a ski resort next to Lucerne. We left Versailles at 6 AM and got to Engelberg at noon, we left the car on a parking lot, went to have lunch at a Rösti restaurant(very good one btw, i don't remember the name, but it was next to the sports center) and then bought our tickets for the lift.
To get to the Igloo meeting point, we had to go up the mountains on a lift until about half the way to the top of the mountain(there are several stops) and meet our guide inside a hotel(real hotel, not one made of snow).
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| My husband and I at the hotel before going to the igloo |
Waiting for everyone to show up, we had a glass of Swiss red wine and got warm. We thought maybe we could stock some heat before our adventure, which by the way, didn't work...
When all the guests were there we left the hotel and after a 10 minute walk, we got to the igloo.
If it's a cloudy day, have in mind that it will be very difficult to find the igloo. The snow mixes with the clouds and you don't know where the snow stops and the sky starts, so my advise, don't walk around without a guide!
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| Outside of the igloo |
The igloo looks like, well ... an igloo ... though instead of ice blocks it's a whole lot of compressed snow. Imagine the sand castles you use to make with your siblings when you were little, now paint it white and make it adult size! That's about it, but a little more difficult to destroy it (I hope so!)!
But that's only the outside. Inside everything is carved into beautiful pieces of art! Every year they choose a theme, and when we went, it was China. All the walls from the bar were carved to form a dragon, there were ancient chinese portals between each room, chinese warriors, etc...
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| Carved Dragon bar |
They had 5 kinds of rooms we could choose from when we made the reservation.
The standard one holds up to six people and it has almost no decoration, only the sleeping bags on top of a mattress covered with animal fur.
The romantic holds two, that's the only difference from the standard one.
The romantic plus holds two and has a private bathroom.
The romantic family holds a family of 6(and i'm not sure if you have your own bathroom).
The hot igloo is a warm room(tent) connected to the igloo(I really don't see the point of having this room! If you want to sleep in an igloo, it's implicit that it'll be cold!)
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| Rafael(husband) and Otavio(brother-in-law) inside the sleeping bags in our standard room. |
After having our hot drinks and touring the whole igloo we had dinner!!! Cheese fondue...yayyyy!!!! The dining room had wood tables and wood stools covered in fur which made it a little less freezing!
After our great dinner we had a shot of Kirsch, a cherry brandy, that is commonly drank after heavy meals to help digestion! You almost don't feel the alcohol because of the temperature. All the alcohol goes directly into your body to help heating it!
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| Myself in the dining room! |
After dinner we had the option to go on a night walk with snowshoes(in the form of a racket) and of course, we went! We first learned how to walk on this strange shoes, shoes that I never thought would work, but they actually do and make walking around in snow much easier than with regular shoes. We had a lot of fun, learned how to through ourselves into the snow and more important, how to get out of snow!
After a long one and half hour we were back inside the (now) warm igloo. The outside temperature was about -4°C, maybe less and windy, and inside it always stays between -1°C and 1°C.
I could barely feel my legs and wasn't able to breath without forcing my lungs, but really, it was worth it. An outstanding once in a lifetime experience! Thank god, after the walk, we were scheduled to enjoy one hour of hot tub! That saved me, the only not so good part is to change yourself into a swimsuit. In fact, there is a small warm room made of wood for people to change clothes, but it's a common room, and this might be considered normal for Europeans, but being naked in front of strangers of the opposite sex it's not something that I enjoy much, and neither do most brazilians. So, at the end I changed in our room made from snow and not wood!
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| View from the igloo on the next morning! |
The bathroom is...hmmmm...different. There's no running water, the toilet is an actual toilet with a reaaaally deep whole into the ground, and you don't have water to wash your hands, so you have to use hand sanitizer!
The night was difficult, I had a little bit of difficulty to breath normally, but it was all worth it. I don't recommend it to anyone that already has breathing issues or doesn't enjoy cold weather! It's really an adventure and a really different experience, one really difficult to forget. I'll do it again sometime, probably because I forgot how cold it was, but also I always think that if the temperature was thaaaaat bad, I wouldn't be able to forget. Maybe I'm right, maybe not ... hope I am!!!
IGLU-DORF
LOCATIONS:
Engelberg, Switzerland
Gstaad, Switzerland
Davos, Switzerland
Zermatt, Switzerland
St. Moritz, Switzerland
Zugspitze, Germany
Andorra
PRICES(night, hot tea, dinner and breakfast included, lift and alcoholic beverages not included)
standard room - 149-189 euros
romantic - 249-299 euros
romantic plus - 299-349 euros
hot igloo - 399-449 euros
