Lovers of quiet enjoy staying at Sweden's dream-like ice hotel

Would you spend a night in a room frozen just for you?

We often hear the unusual stories tourists gear up to do, to experience something unusual and unique. But here’s a story at a whole new level.

Thousands of tourists excited to spend a night in icy cold temperatures, and experience what its like to sleep-in in freezing rooms, flock to the most famous ice hotel.

Gaggles of tourists gathered on a February morning for a glimpse of hallways, bedrooms and a wedding chapel sculpted from ice, part of the 30th incarnation of Sweden's ice hotel.

Built every October from the frozen waters of the nearby river Torne, the winter hotel has 35 bedrooms.

Stopping in blue-white hallways to take snaps of a chandelier and ornately decorated bedrooms entirely carved from ice, the tourists are among the 50,000 day visitors to the hotel every year, founded in 1989 by a hotelier looking to attract visitors to the remote town of Jukkasjarvi, 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of the Arctic Circle.

Built every October from the frozen waters of the nearby river Torne, the winter hotel has 35 bedrooms.

Temperatures reach -5 degrees Celsius (23 Fahrenheit) in the rooms, which start at around three times the average price of a night in a three-star establishment in Stockholm.

Individual suites cost more, and feature sculptures and designs by artists from around the world.

One room inspired by the aurora borealis -- the northern lights that can be seen in the skies nearby -- features lighting that changes colour, as well as a giant snow sculpture of a reindeer's head, all set to a soundtrack of ambient music and, occasionally, reindeer grunts.

Around 20,000 guests spend a night in the hotel every year.

But 25-year-old guide Julia Hansers said guests usually react less to the cold than to the tranquility.

"A lot of people coming here live in the city, and there you always have some sort of sounds and noise around you, and inside the ice hotel it's completely quiet," said Hansers, peering out from under a thick woolly hat.

Bo Bjerggaard, a gallerist from Copenhagen, spent a night wrapped in a sleeping bag and a reindeer-skin throw.

"During the night I had to get up and then it was of course cold," Bjerggaard said, standing outside in the hotel's dazzling white courtyard made from snow.

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"Then (it's) great again when you come back into the sleeping bag -- you sleep so well because of the temperature," he said with a smile.

Guests can also enjoy a drink in the ice bar, where all beverages are served in glasses made from ice.

Since 2016 the hotel has also used solar panels to generate electricity to cool a nearby building to below zero to allow them to keep 20 rooms frozen all year round.