Frosty night in a romantic igloo

Minus ten degrees, at least a meter of fresh snow – what about the temperature in our new hotel? In bright sunshine we trudge through deep snow to our tonight’s romantic place to stay. Near the Three-Lakes funicular in the small Austrian village Kühtai a dozen snow hills raise up between trails and slopes. But what looks like a snow stock for spring offers at least twelve couples an icy place to stay at 2.000 meters altitude near Innsbruck. Today we will join and let our romantic dream come true.

The check-in starts in the afternoon at the large igloo bar of the so called “Igloo Village Kühtai” and we have a warm welcome a hot pot of tea. The floor is covered with wooden chips, a sculptor has carved various figures in the snowy walls.

In each igloo you will find another picture, we get the Teddy igloo with icy hearts. Finally, it will indeed a romantic night – or not?

But before that, we got a short introduction how to spend a night in an igloo. Inside there is a constant temperature of zero degrees Celsius and everything you would like to wear the next morning has to spend the whole night in the sleeping bag. “Even phones or contact lenses come to bed with you,” explains Philip Walschebauer who organizes the Igloo Village every year. But until that happens, there are still some warming activities to do – after the igloo is not as convenient as a hotel room.

So we go for curling with Sandra Wendt on the natural ice next to the Jagdschloss Kühtai. The German girl studied in Innsbruck and has been working in the igloo village for years. We borrow three curling stones and the ice rink guard plays the referee. At the end it was real fun! “Normally I ‘m only a viewer or the referee,” Sandra apologizes with a smile for her third place in our little competition and solves her gambling debts in form of a Tyrolean schnapps in the igloo bar.

After a cheese fondue in the Igloo Restaurant at zero degrees we get out for doing some sports. With snowshoes we walk through the sparse pine forest up to the Austrian hut “Graf-Ferdinand-Hütte”. Meanwhile, the temperatures have dropped to minus ten degrees, but after walking 250 meters height in deep snow, it gets warm! At the hut there are classic wooden sleds waiting for us, and on the two and a half kilometers long illuminated toboggan track we race downhill – up right in front of the igloo.

Not it gets really cold. After brushing teeth in the well-tempered washrooms of the sports field we obtain our igloo. As we open the door some candles are already burning and illuminating the snowy bear the architect has carved into the wall of the igloo. We quickly slip into long underwear in a warming fleece, then into the sleeping bag. The first time I wear a hat even at night! I sleep tight until the next morning – thanks to the fresh air.

The next morning everyone gets up early at eight clock, checking out in the igloo bar. “Did you sleep well?” Philip looks curiously at the well-perfused faces of his guests. Common nod. We go to the hotel next door for breakfast and I suddenly feel like sitting in a sauna, but there are only 20 degrees. After that I am happy to return to the freezing temperatures on the slopes.

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