We’re headed to Kemi Snow Castle.

Finland Road Trippin! Flying to Helsinki was the farthest North I’ve ever been and we were only headed North, North, and more North from there! Now we’re driving from Oulu to Kemi which is about a 2 hour drive from the airport, to check out the Kemi Snow Castle.

Have you ever thought about spending the night in a Snow Castle?

Started in 1996 with the first Snow Castle, Kemi has been producing a unique and wonderful castle for the past 20 years. At the end of each season the entire castle melts back into the lake right beside it and plans are drawn up for the next year where it will be reborn again. The 2016 theme was medieval.

Walking through with Noora, she was explaining that the shields represent the armory symbols for Kemi and the surrounding towns.

There are a group of about 10 ice sculptor’s that travel around every year carving ice and as it turns out, Kemi Snow Castle is about a 10 day stop for them each season.

“Hey there mister, can I get a glass of what you’re having?”

In a side room there is a private table mostly reserved for people who have weddings or other private events at the castle while it is open. This year’s castle will be open from 23 JAN 2016 – 10 APR 2016.

The dining area, they serve both lunch and dinner everyday. Reservations are a must as they prepare the food ahead of time and ship it over to the castle to serve.

Exploring the galleries where the rooms are, you can see how cool the sculptures have turned out.

“Merlin, what are you doing at the snow castle?”

A dragon!

The hotel part of the castle. Each blue door is a room you can spend the night inside of.

One of the rooms had this arm wrestling scene in it.

This is where we ended up staying for the night since I was with 2 of my friends. A room full of books!

Reminds me of “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe. You know, the story where Montresor is in an Italian city for carnival and he lures a guy dressed like a jester down to the wine cellar and builds him into the wall to seek revenge. Pretty morbid.

Queen in the castle, queen in the castle.

All ice in this room. Here’s the secret, there are steps around back which lead to an ice slide.

So much blue!

Just checking out the slide. We’re still children at heart!

For the afternoon we headed over to the local spa which you will get a voucher for if you are spending the night at the castle (Don’t forget it when you go over or you’ll have to bring it back!). At the spa they have a wet and dry sauna for both men and women and a swimming pool. There’s just one thing about the sauna’s in Finland. You have to go into them naked! So get ready for that.

DINNER AT KEMI SNOW CASTLE

Cheers, we are eating dinner at a snow castle!

Here’s the big question, what wine are we going to order?

Luckily they give you extra blankets to wrap up in, to keep you extra warm while you are dining.

The first course of the evening was soup for everyone, mine was a mushroom soup in cream sauce. It could have been a little warmer.

Fresh bread with garlic and herb butter, which is what you’re going to want to slather onto that bread, because it’s delicious.

For the main course we each had something different. Clare had a vegetarian option with vegetables, Kyle had reindeer, and I had lamb with mashed potatoes.

Overall the meal was okay, nothing special or overly fancy. This is mostly because they must bring the food from somewhere else to serve. In 2017, they plan to build the castle a couple of kilometers to the South, which will also include the facilities to make food as its ordered. I think this will help tremendously.

Enjoying our meal on a very thick slab of ice. Definitely a wonderful evening spent with friends.

For desert, a berry current with custard for Clare and in a heart shaped pot. Just days before Valentine’s Day, wonder if this is a sign?!

By the time dinner ended it was dark outside and we decided to have some more fun on the castle grounds.

Climbing to the top of the spiral staircase you can see out across the frozen lake where the ice was taken from, to build this castle. They use chain saws to cut the ice and drag it to sure to use just like in the movie Frozen!

This might even be the song they sing when they are cutting the ice for the castle. 😉

Walking the corridors at night while everyone else was hanging out at the lodge.

Kyle is sweet talking the guy at the bar for a sip of his drink.

Lumi Lina, Visit Kemi!

After running around all day we were pretty exhausted. It was time to head over to the lodge for our brief of how to sleep on ice all night.

This is the safe haven. If you get too cold in the castle you can come over and warm up at the lodge, buy some snacks or hot chocolate, tea, mulled wine, etc. The shop is open 24/7 so you’ll always be able to pick something up.

This is also where breakfast is served each morning.

In the back of the room, everyone is given a locker with key so you can keep your bags inside and warm for the evening. Especially when you come in the morning to change into another set of clothes.

After the briefing we were off to our bed, to hunker down for the night.

This is what it looks like to sleep in a snow hotel.

Thanks so much Noora for our tour of the Snow Castle and @VISITKEMI for hosting me and letting us run free in the Snow Castle. As always, I’m telling it how it is, like you could expect anything less!

This article appeared first on The Cassey Excursion.